The Student Association’s Senate branch allocated $4342 dollars to various clubs and organizations during Wednesday night’s weekly meeting.
Quynh Bui, President of V-Nation was the first representative to request funding. Initially, Bui, along with other ranking members of V-Nation, requested the allocation of $2000 for the purposes of supplying the upcoming Vietnamese Food Festival with the funds necessary to purchase food and decorations. V-Nation currently contains 30 to 40 active members, yet presented the expectation of 100 people to attend their impending food festival. This discrepancy led to the recommendation of both Senators Zyaijiah Nadler and Rai that a reduction in expectations, and thus reduction in allocations, was appropriate in light of the Student Association’s tight budget. Nadler requested that V-Nation “knock the number down to 75”, a request agreed to by Bui.
This was the first of several contentious negotiations regarding allocations between Senate members and club representatives. The allocation was approved unanimously.
Speaker of the Senate, Joe Lewis switched to the other side of the aisle as he approached the Senate representing the Film Club as Vice President. The Film Club requested the allocation of $250 dollars for the purpose of acquiring long sleeve t-shirts for the 17 active members. The allocation was approved seeing only Senator Nadler dissenting.
The Indian Culture and Entertainment, and South Asian Student Association was the third organization to present their case for the receival of allocations. President Behnoosh Sethna, along with the largest group in attendance, including four members of the Senate, requested $400 to finance their celebration of Holi, a religious festival of colors. The event will take place on April 15 after being delayed due to weather conditions. The previous event held last year saw approximately 60 people in attendance. This year, the representatives expressed hopes to see that number rise to 100 people. Nadler expressed hesitation to accept the speculated amount of attendance “bringing to attention the date”, as the weekend of April 15 will see many other events within campus. Acting representative Sarahana Shrestha expressed the importance of bringing the cultural event to international students who miss the opportunity to celebrate their cultural heritage during their studies abroad. Ultimately, the allocations were approved by the Senate despite contention.
Following suit, a singular representative of the Biology Club, patiently waiting her turn which finally arrived around 11:30 p.m., requested the allocation of $461 dollars to enable the purchase of t-shirts along with a trip to visit the Biodome in Montreal. The 12 active members in the Biology Club were granted access to the funding unanimously.
Finally, represented by Student Association President Vrinda Kumar, the Center for Student Involvement requested $2000 to assist in the purchase of 1000 t-shirts to be handed out during orientations to incoming freshmen. Originally, intending to request $3500, the CSI reduced the request, nevertheless the allocation provoked contention with Senator Rai “suggesting a reduction to $1500”. Student Association Adviser, Jake Avery, stressed the importance of the approval, highlighting the fact that, “no additional money exists in the orientation budget” and that if the Senate chooses to refuse this request, to provide supporting funds to the accumulated bulk ordination budget required, the purchase of the Rock the Red shirts would be impossible.
After extensive deliberation, seeing both sides of the issue speak thoroughly as to the pros and cons, the allocation was approved—unanimously.
Email Kyle Welling at news@cardinalpointsonline.com
