The first Georgetown University Student Association Budget Summit was a real doozey, lasting from 10 a.m. all the way to 8 p.m. on Sunday. During the meeting, the advisory boards presented their budget proposals to the Finance and Appropriations Committee of the GUSA Senate, which has taken on the role of the Funding Board.
There wasn’t a whole lot of deliberation among senators since the meeting was mainly focused on presentations and actual allocation will take place later this week, but there were some interesting clues—particularly regarding SAC—about how budgets may look next year.
First came the proposals from the Georgetown Program Board and the Center for Social Justice for $45,000 and $64,000 respectively. Both proposals were well-received by the committee, but CSJ’s request for 46 percent more funding than last year faced opposition. Chairman of the Finance and Appropriations Committee Nick Troiano (COL ’11) made clear that since there was $55,000 more in requests this year than in available funds, some groups would not receive all the money they requested.
“We want to give [CSJ] more money, but I would doubt they’ll receive their full request,” Senator Colton Malkerson (COL ’13), who sits on the FinApp committee said.
The next budget proposal, $25,000 for the Performing Arts Advisory Council, did not go as smoothly. The FinApp Committee felt PAAC’s budget proposal lacked specifics and didn’t make clear how the requested money would be spent.
Leaders from all six advisory boards voted against creating the GUSAFund at a Funding Board meeting today, but the Finance and Appropriations Committee will still be able to pass the GUSA Fund through the Funding Board without their approval.
At the meeting, advisory board leaders voiced concerns that GUSA would not have the knowledge to run the GUSA Fund. They asked what kind of experience the GUSA Fund members would have, how GUSA would know if events were duplicities of events that already existed, and how the GUSA Fund would handle clubs that went over budget.
GUSA senators also learned at the meeting that the Funding Board has $51,412 in reserve, unlike $69,687 like they had previously believed. The GUSA Fund plans to draw $30,000 from that reserve, meaning the GUSA Fund will now require more than half.
GUSA Speaker Adam Talbot (COL ‘12—LXR) said the GUSA executive will be looking for GUSA fund members who can bring both funding experience and club management experience. In regards to event duplicities, Finance and Appropriations Chair Nick Troiano (COL ’11—Village A, A-D) replied that because of access to benefits, advisory boards would still need to approve official club-sponsored events before the GUSA Fund could allocate funds.
Advisory board members suggested this would make an already tedious process even more bureaucratic.
“Clubs are looking for funds, and they’re willing to jump through hoops to get it,” GUSA Chief of Staff Tim Swenson replied. “While we’re trying to make it as streamlined as possible …. this is our way of addressing that temporarily.” [Edited at 10:21 p.m.]
In case ourcoverage of the Hoya’s delayed independence (not to mention their news story, editorial and letter from the editor) left you confused about the Media Board’s logic, Vox has some of the memos that show the Media Board’s reasoning behind their sanctions.
First, we have the memo Director of Student Programs Erika Cohen-Derr sent on behalf of the Media Board to the leadership of the Hoya on April 22 announcing their sanctions:
According to emails obtained by the Voice, in mid-April the Office of Institutional Diversity, Equity and Affirmative Action filed a complaint with Media Board, the funding board that oversees student media, over the Hoya’s April Fools Issue. On April 22, Media Board issued sanctions, including a one year delay of the Hoya’s planned independence.
The Hoya appealed Media Board’s ruling, citing their unwillingness to remain tied to the University, but their appeal was denied on June 16, documents show. A three person appeals board composed of Father Christopher Steck, S.J., GUSA President Calen Angert (MSB ‘11), and Faculty Senate President Wayne Davis decided that Media Board had acted within their rights and that the ruling should not be overturned.
The Voice will have more information in our Friday issue.
Newsprint dying? Devil may care! At the beginning of the upcoming school year the Georgetown Independent, Georgetown’s good ol’ monthly newsmag, will be making a serious aesthetic upgrade, going from newsprint to glossy paper.
According to Erika Cohen-Derr, the Director of Student Programs and Media Board adviser, the Independent will self impose cuts in order to defray the costs of glossing it up. So while the Indy estimates that its printing costs will only rise about $200—from $7,802 last year to a projected $8,000 this year—it will be cutting down the number of copies it prints per issue from 4,000 to 3,000.
Jenna Kelly (COL ‘10), who served as co-Editor in Chief during the spring semester, said the Indy’s staff decided last semester that they needed to make some changes. Kelly wrote in an e-mail:
[We made the decision to go glossy because] both our newspaper and other campus papers always have numerous copies left over to be recycled … We want to cultivate a new niche in the gtown journalism community.
Though the Hoya typically prints a few magazine-style issues every year, such as their basketball issue and a new student guide, this change will make the Independent the only Georgetown publication to print magazine style year-round.
Curiously, they first announced their decision to Georgetown pre-frosh. Fliers that went into every packet of new student information earlier this week read, “The Independent is going glossy. (And we think you should, too!).”
Photo from Flickr user bravenewtraveler under a Creative Commons license.
The Hoya’s Independence movement has been in the works for almost five years now. In that time, that lovable bi-weekly rag has been doted on by corporate sponsors and potentially denied use of its own name by the University.
However, it seems like their efforts for Hoyapendence may be nearing fruition. In last Wednesday’s GUSA Senate meeting, one Senator remarked that The Hoya’s independence will relieve the Media Board of its greatest source of income, and largest expenditure.
In a conversation yesterday, Senator Matt Wagner (SFS `11) said that when the six University Funding Board meet on Feb. 11 to allot money to the six funding boards (of which the Media Board is one, and SAC, of Sophia Behnia fame, is another), the typically unobstrusive Media Board will take more time than usual to present its funding requests to the University:
“The Media Board is usually not even looked at for a lot of time because its requests are usually the same every year. But this time with the Hoya not being a big part of the picture, the picture—I assume the picture is going to be very different as their requests will not be the same.”
The suspense is almost unbearable, but in the meantime, you can join The Georgetown Heckler’s Jack Stuef in his solemn remembrance of the “Save the Hoya” movement.
Vox Populi is the staff blog of the Georgetown Voice, a weekly newsmagazine at Georgetown University. Opinions expressed in posts are those of their author alone unless otherwise stated.
The first Georgetown University Student Association Budget Summit was a real doozey, lasting from 10 a.m. all the way to 8 p.m. on Sunday. During the meeting, the advisory boards presented their budget proposals to the Finance and Appropriations Committee of the GUSA Senate, which has taken on the role of the Funding Board.
The planned GUSA Fund would make it rain
Does this mean it’ll have staples?
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