The SAFE commission voted last night to allocate nearly all of its $3.4 million endowment to the creation of the Healy Student Space as part of its primary recommendation to GUSA’s Finance and Appropriations committee.

The commission also designated a “secondary” slate of projects to consider in the event that the Healy project proves unfeasible, with money potentially going towards a new student space in New South, the SIPS social entrepreneurship fund, and an omnibus grant for improvements to existing student spaces.

In total, the SAFE commission voted to recommend $3,230,000 be allocated towards the Healy Pub, with the remaining $170,000 going towards the construction of energy-saving solar panels on university townhouses.

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Tuesday night, the Endowment Commission met to decide the fate of the $3.4 million Student Activities Fee Endowment. Coming off a closed executive session on Sunday, the commission weighed in on the main ideas left on the table.

All the commissioners present selected Georgetown Energy’s $170 million thousand proposal to install solar panels on 43 townhouses as a primary recommendation. The money saved from solar energy use would feed into the GUSA fund.

As for Healy Pub, the commission attempted to balance its desire to give the proposal a vote of confidence, while still funding other requests.

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On Tuesday evening, the Endowment Commission met for nearly three hours to consider the largest of the proposals for spending down the $3.4 million Student Activities Fee Endowment. The ideas included placing solar panels on University-owned townhouses, creating an innovation fund for student social enterprise, and reviving the pub in Healy basement.

Georgetown Energy requested $163,399 to place solar panels on 43 university-owned townhouses. The students living in townhouses would continue to pay the standard kilowatt-hour rate as if they were still fully dependent on the grid, but the University would then reimburse the student government for the full savings

After paying SolarCity for the lease of its panels, net savings over the life of the twenty-year lease is $295,457. The total estimated cash transfer to GUSA would be $458,856.

The next request was from the Georgetown University Social Innovation and Public Service (SIPS) Fund. Clara Gustafson (SFS ’13) and Nick Troiano (COL ’11) asked for $1.5 million to endow a fund that would give grants to students to start a social enterprise, conduct a community service trip, or pursue a career in public service.

“It’s students and their ideas that we can use to go out there and do good things and make a positive impact,” Troiano said.

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The GUSA Endowment Commission held a town hall meeting on Saturday afternoon to address how to spend the $3.4 million made available by the SAFE reform passed this December.

The commission’s chair, Andrew Curtis (MSB ’11), described to a group of around 20 students the process that governs the use of these funds so that they have a positive and lasting impact on all Georgetown undergraduates.

Though proposals can include various components, the Commission will choose no more than five submissions from both current students and alumni.  The Commission also hopes that alumni additions to the $3.4 million will expand the impact of student-directed improvements to the University.

GUSA Finance and Appropriations Committee Chair Colton Malkerson (COL ’13) stressed that students submitting proposals should become fully aware of the feasibility of projects by contacting appropriate offices on campus.

Though some proposals have suggested efforts at beautification or improvements of athletic facilities, Curtis said that the most common theme throughout the approximately 20 submissions the commission has already received has been the desire for more student space on campus.  Despite not yet having formally been presented to the commission, the reestablishment of a pub in the basement of Healy Hall to provide an informal space for students to socialize has received particular attention.

The next step in the process of deciding how to spend the funds is a second town hall meeting on Saturday, April 9.  After all proposals have been submitted by April 10, the FinApp body will review them over the summer.  The final step, a student referendum, is expected to take place next winter.

Alumni support for the effort to bring back Healy Pub has continued to grow.

John Dickman (COL ’73), who served as general manager of the University Center Café from 1973-1974 and the University Center Pub from 1974-1975, recently wrote a letter to the University community about his support for the proposal to bring back the pub.

“The brilliance of this proposal, not fully appreciated 38 years ago, is the synergy of a gathering place for the university community with iconic Healy Hall, which is the very image of Georgetown University,” Dickman wrote.

Read the full letter on the Georgetown Voice’s website.

In an email sent to the SAFE Reform Endowment Commission this morning, a number of current students and alumni, led by Matt Stoller (COL ’08), submitted a proposal to bring back the Healy Pub.

The effort requests that the $3.4 million from the recently passed Student Activities Fee Endowment Reform be used to reopen the pub, which opened in 1974 and closed in the 1994-1995 academic year after relocating itself to the Leavey Center earlier that decade.

In an 11-page proposal, the group lays out why it believes that reopening the pub would be beneficial to the campus community. Under the plan, the pub would not close to students under 21 during the late night, unlike The Tombs, which the group believes would alleviate some neighbor concerns about students being off campus. It also includes an example of a successful currently operating student pub: The Cambridge Queen’s Head Pub at Harvard University.

The proposal also suggests that offices currently located in the Healy basement, the former home of the pub, be relocated to other spaces on campus such as opened up by the creation of the Hariri Building and the science center that is currently under construction.

Find out more information about the proposal at BringBackHealyPub.com, on Twitter at @HealyPub, or on the group’s Facebook page.

Read the full proposal and a letter from former employees and patrons of the Healy Pub after the jump.

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