For this year’s March Madness, Vox has assembled the most eclectic group of tournament brackets Georgetown’s ever seen. Famous and “famous” Hoyas alike opted to fill out a bracket for our pool—and while characters like President John DeGioia, Provost Jim O’Donnell, and Professor Madeleine Albright declined to participate, don’t follow basketball very closely, and didn’t respond, respectively, we’re pumped to share the responses we did get.

Our pool pits alums like First Lady of South Carolina Jenny Sanford (MSB ‘84), comedian Mike Birbiglia (COL ‘00), and Washington City Paper’s Mike DeBonis (COL ‘04), against professor Sen. Chuck Hagel, Dean of the College Chester Gillis, and Director of Student Programs Erika Cohen-Derr.

Students Nick Troiano (COL ‘11) of GUSA, Corp CEO Brad Glasser (COL ‘11), and ANC Commissioner Aaron Golds (COL ‘11) are playing, as are CAG President Jennifer Altemus (COL ‘88), Casual Hoya, and nodak89 (Chris Tiongson (COL ‘89)), of musical fame.

There’s no prize for winning—just bragging rights. The entries are below, and you can click each image to make it bigger.

Jenny Sanford

Sanford has Kentucky winning it all. In her bracket, Georgetown loses to Ohio State in the Sweet Sixteen.

Chuck Hagel

Hagel has Kansas beating Georgetown in the Elite Eight. But there’s no shame in being beaten by the best, right?

Mike Birbiglia

Birbiglia’s true blue. He’s got Georgetown going all the way, beating Kentucky in the championship game.

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At the start of the new club funding process, the Student Activities Commission requested $35,000 from the Georgetown University Student Association, the new guardians of our Student Activities Fee, only to be scoffed at: in the draft budget it proposed just before Spring Break, the Georgetown University Student Association Finance and Appropriations Committee suggested that SAC get a total allocation of a mere $12,500.

The FinApp Committee meant this miserly counter-’offer’ as a rebuke of SAC for having refused to adopt some of GUSA’s six reforms for advisory boards—”in recognition that the Commission is in good standing with some, but not all, of the reform proposals,” in the words of the FinApp committee. But if the committee hoped its penny-pinching would coerce SAC into adopting the remaining reforms, for the moment, they’re going to be disappointed. In an e-mail to SAC club leaders sent today, SAC Chair Ethel Amponsah (NHS ‘11) tells clubs to brace themselves for the limitations the meager GUSA allocation will place on SAC allocation, even as it dips into its reserves.

“I would like to note that SAC has complied with 4 out of the 6 recommendations in an effort to compromise with the Committee,” she wrote. “The draft budget reduces SAC’s allocation budget by about 15%. Please consider how this will effect your organizational budget as this reduction will be felt across all SAC groups …. FinApp would like to mandate that SAC use the excess funds for its allocation budget. However, that is not sustainable as within two years the excess funds would be depleted and SAC would still receive insufficient funds from FinApp.”

SAC’s reserves, she said, are currently at $215,000, and the Office of Student Affairs has suggested that it should maintain reserves of at least $150,000.

In response to Amponsah’s claims, Chair of the FinApp Committee Nick Troiano (COL ‘11) said that SAC had only made good faith efforts towards completing three of the six reforms GUSA would like it to make. They are still not disclosing how their individual members vote on allocations, he said, they do not yet have a plan to spend down their reserves, and they do not have a method for picking their leadership that is accountable to the student body.

Read more, plus Amponsah’s full message after the jump, and a statement from members of the FinApp Committee after the jump.

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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.

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This week’s Georgetown University Student Association meeting featured an irksome inauguration (just like Obama’s!) and tear-jerking eulogies to Philly P’s. Here’s the wrap:

Inaugurations: GUSA swore in the newly-reelected President and Vice President Calen Angert (MSB ‘11) and Jason Kluger (MSB ‘11)—perhaps extraconstitutionally?

“There is a curious little quirk of the by-laws which requires the outgoing president and vice-president to administer the oath to the incoming president and vice-president,” Parliamentarian Sam Ungar (COL ‘12) told the Senate. Given that the outgoing president and vice-president and the incoming president and vice-president were one and the same, Ungar decided to administer the oath himself.

After their swearing in, both candidates delivered speeches to the GUSA senate. Kluger called on the Senate to remember Gandhi’s words to become the change they want to see in the world, while Angert urged Senators to maintain their dedication to the GUSA senate and never be afraid to throw themselves into large and challenging projects. Angert then swore in newly-elected Senator Andrew Foley (MSB ‘10), who could not raise his right hand because his arm is broken—another suspect inauguration?

GUSA Fund Bolsters Funding Board: The GUSA senate approved a bill to transfer $15,000 from the GUSA fund to the Student Activities Fee Reserve account, which is used to provide funds to advisory boards. Chairman of the Finance and Appropriations Committee Nick Troiano (COL ‘11) said he had talked with GUSA Fund Chair Kate Petersen (COL ‘11) and that she said the GUSA Fund could limit its spending to $15,000 for the semester.

“We simply want to go into the budget process with as much money as we can,” Troiano said.

New Sign: GUSA unanimously approved a bill to appropriate $200 towards the creation of a vinyl sign bearing GUSA’s logo. The bill was introduced by Senator Nolan Johnson (COL’11), who said the sign was “a great way to make use of GUSA’s new logo”.

This week’s meeting of the Georgetown University Student Association Senate included a heated contest to fill a vacant seat on the Finance and Appropriations committee, and a denouncement of Eric Cusimano’s extracurricular involvements. Here’s the wrap:

Finance and Appropriations Committee Post Filled

In perhaps the most contentious part of the meeting, Senator Ben Bold (COL’13) was selected by the full Senate to fill a vacancy on the Finance and Appropriations Committee. During his time for remarks, Bold said he had closely followed the work of the Finance and Appropriations Committee and had fully supported the funding board reform. Bold ran against Senator Matthew Ginsberg (COL’11), who said that he was suited for the job because he had an interest in financial allocations and had served as a director for the Corp.

During the debate over the confirmation, some Senators appeared to argue that Senator Bold was competent and self-motivated, and therefore should be opposed. Speaker Adam Talbot (COL ‘12) warned against a “leadership accretion” on the FinApp Committee, while FinApp Chair Nick Troiano (COL ‘11) said, “Our committee has enough ambition and self-motivated people … We have to distribute this energy to all the committees.” Ultimately, however, Bold’s attributes were deemed more of a good thing than a bad thing, and he was approved by a 10-8 vote.

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After last week’s high-stakes and controversial Georgetown University Student Association meeting, where they passed comprehensive funding reform legislation, this week’s meeting hewed closer to classic GUSA style: longer than necessary, peppered with perfunctory legislation, and largely innocuous.

The 2010 GUSA Presidential Debate

The meeting began with a discussion about the much-anticipated GUSA Presidential Debate. Speaker Adam Talbot (COL ‘12) said it will be “99 percent sure taking place on Wednesday, 89 percent sure taking place in Sellinger Lounge,” with the doubt over the location due to the fact that they have not yet reserved the Lounge. GUSA Parliamentarian Sam Ungar (COL ‘12) said that the debate would include all four presidential candidates, and feature questions from representatives of the major campus media organizations.

Public Comment Legislation

The first bill passed by the GUSA Senate changed the GUSA bylaws to require the Finance and Appropriations Committee to convene a public hearing within seven days of drafting of a budget so that representatives of advisory boards can voice concerns they may have over the budget. The bill also requires the speaker to allow for a period of public comment during the general senate meeting at which the budget will be voted on.

The bill faced essentially no opposition, mostly because it wasn’t changing the current practices. As Speaker Talbot said when he voiced his support for the bill, “The seven day waiting period is already sort of institutionalized… and I think it was sort of connoted in the wording that that time was there for individual chairs of the advisory boards to come and voice their concerns.” The bill was approved unanimously.

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If we learned anything about the GUSA Senate this Monday night it’s that they have a USPS-like devotion to braving the elements.  As the rest of the school buckled down for our second-consecutive snow day, the Senate reaffirmed that neither snow nor gloom of night would interfere with its commitment to legislating.

And legislate it did, slogging through a two-hour discussion before passing the controversial Act to Modify the By-laws to Improve Student Activities Funding by a vote of 19 to four.  The bill will strip advisory boards of their votes on allocating the Student Activities Fee, giving control of the process to GUSA’s Finance and Appropriations Committee.

The meeting opened with a period of public comment on the bill.  The three student who spoke all expressed opposition to the changes.  Nick Calta (COL ‘10), Chair of the Advisory Board for Club Sports, cautioned that the bill would create “the potential for really wide fluctuations in funding”; a representative from the Center for Social Justice decried the adversarial tone of the debate and urged senators to think about “what kind of leadership this legislation is promoting”; and former GUSA Senator and current GUSA Presidential Candidate Matt Wagner (SFS ‘11) warned that it would be “a huge mistake” to pass the bill.

After a quick executive briefing—in which GUSA President Calen Angert (MSB ‘11), when asked by a Senator about his stance, said he “fully endorsed” the bill—the act’s co-sponsors, Senators Nick Troiano (COL ‘11, Village A: A-D) and Colton Malkerson (COL ‘13, Harbin 2-5), gave their spiel about bill, explaining what exactly it would change and why they believe it is necessary.

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Given the kind of concerned, accusatory letters some advisory board leaders sent in the last week, the town hall that the Georgetown University Student Association hosted last night to shed additional light on its proposed funding reforms was surprisingly quiet. A few students grudgingly observed that they didn’t think GUSA had enough knowledge about the various advisory boards to oversee the new club funding process they are proposing, and club representatives individually worried about how specific events their group holds will be affected by the potential funding changes. But for the most part, the town hall was uncontentious. It even ended early.

It kicked off with a half-hour presentation by members of GUSA’s Finance and Appropriations Committee detailing the reforms they intend to (or already have) passed in order to completely remake the current process by which student groups at Georgetown get funding, followed by a about an hour-and-a-half long question and answer session.

Standing below a large powerpoint presentation in a lecture hall in Reiss, members of the FinApp committee reiterated the now-familiar goals of funding reform, among them increasing transparency and efficiency in the funding process, and improving oversight of those involved in allocating the Student Activities Fee, the $50 that each student pays at the beginning of each semester. FinApp members also touched on some of the things they feel show that there their efforts have student consensus, like the Accountability and Reform Amendment—an amendment that students passed in 2006 giving GUSA the authority to the authority to audit the advisory boards and final say as to how much money is appropriated to each board.

Greg Laverriere (COL ‘12) walked the audience of about thirty students through the results of a club satisfaction survey GUSA conducted last semester (see the results here), and summed up student sentiment about the current funding process.

“Student clubs and organizations face an uphill climb to secure resources and receive reasonable control over their activities …. Student clubs and organizations are not getting the money they deserve and need,” he said, adding that the club funding process is bloated and opaque compared to the process at peer schools.

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On Thursday, Vox published a letter that Student Activities Commission Chair Ethel Amponsah (NHS ‘11) had sent to student club leaders challenging the various funding reforms the Georgetown University Student Association is working to enact. In her e-mail, she referenced another letter she had sent to GUSA specifically addressing the six reforms GUSA had said all of the funding boards must achieve, or they would withhold student activity fees from the boards.

Vox has obtained the letter from Amponsah, which she sent on December 4. In her letter, she maintains that there is already an appeals process for clubs that go before SAC, SAC meetings are already open to the public, and that SAC is already in the process of creating a means for clubs to get lump sum funding. (Disclosure: Amponsah and I participated in an After School Kids group together our freshman year).

Readers have also sent Vox a letter that members of GUSA’s Finance and Appropriations Committee, including Chair Nick Troiano (COL ‘11), sent to club leaders in response to Amponsah’s e-mail on Friday, January 29.

“We’d like to set the record straight,” it reads. “Our proposed reforms seek to make the student activities funding process more democratic, accountable and efficient. Let us be clear, our sole intention is to make the system work better for you.”

Finally, there’s a letter from the Center for Social Justice Advisory Board for Student Organizations to its student clubs in response to GUSA’s proposed reforms.

“If officially passed, this legislation would greatly hinder ABSO’s ability to represent, actively advocate, or secure funding for you,” the letter reads.

Read all three letters in full after the jump!

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These little piggies want to keep their votes

When the Funding Board reconvened yesterday after the board’s contentious meeting two weeks ago, it approved the GUSA Fund once GUSA agreed to amend its request of $30,000 and instead ask for $26,000 from the general Funding Board reserve. GUSA now plans to provide $4,000 from its own operating budget, pending Senate approval.

Advisory board members indicated that GUSA investing some of its own money would be a show of good faith since advisory board members were concerned about investing such a large sum in a new funding structure. Last meeting, all six advisory boards voted down the GUSA Fund. After this meeting’s amendment, the five advisory board members voted yes, with only GPB Chair Matt Brennan (COL ‘10) voting no. Brennan had said he wanted the Funding Board to allocate even less to start up the Fund and then reconsider how much the Fund needed in the spring.

The Funding Board came to its decision after Erika Cohen-Derr, Director of Student Programs, encouraged the group to seek “consensus based opinion” instead of a unanimous decision. GUSA members wanted to move forward in the meeting, but advisory boards reiterated the need for more discussion before the group moved to a vote.

“At every funding board meeting I’ve been to before this, after each proposal, we actually talk about it, talk about changing it, and try to figure out a proposal that’s acceptable to everybody, whereas this year, we’ve voted and waited 10 days,” said Club Sports Chair Nick Calta (COL ‘10).

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