All you do-gooder econ and finance students out there, get excited: two Georgetown students—Brian Gallagher (MSB ‘10) and Ben Sacher (SFS ‘12)—are starting a microfinance club.

The idea behind microfinance is that giving small loans to entrepreneurs in impoverished communities who are too poor to get traditional loans from banks.

Gallagher explained how Georgetown Microfinance would operate in an e-mail:

The club will focus on promoting microfinance and providing loans to entrepreneurs both locally and in developing countries. Our core activity is to provide micro loans to entrepreneurs by building and managing a student run evergreen micro loan fund. Once the entrepreneur?s new business is successful, they will repay the loan allowing the fund to continue to grow and positively affect an increasing number of individuals each year.

The club just got approval from the Center for Social Justice earlier this week.

Gallagher says they are planning to raise money for the fund through donations, letter writing campaigns, social events, the sale of fair trade goods on campus and other fundraisers.  He also says they will be working with other campus groups and the local branch of Grameen Bank, the bank started by Nobel Prize-winning economist and microfinance pioneer Muhammad Yunus.

After years of clashing with SAC and bandying about the possibility of GUSA-sponsored club funding, the GUSA Senate passed a bill yesterday afternoon creating a GUSA Fund which will allow GUSA to provide an alternative mode of funding for clubs.

Longtime SAC-critic Nick Troiano (COL ’11—Village A A-D) introduced the bill, which would create “the Fund” to “[serve] as a resource for the Georgetown community by co-sponsoring events and activities that are initiated by or benefit students.”

The Fund will consist of five members nominated by GUSA President Calen Angert (MSB ’11) and confirmed by the Senate. The Fund will meet once a week to consider applications for funds received through an online application.

The Fund will be able up to $500 per organization, event or initiative, but the Senate must approve any requested allocation over $500. The Fund will only be able to give money to groups that have already been granted access to benefits through SAC, and organizations receiving money from the Fund will have to “make it known” that GUSA has co-sponsored the event.

Where will money for the Fund be coming from?  According to Troiano, GUSA will seek to gain about $30,000 from the Funding Board’s $69,000 surplus.

Troiano said the Fund should be ready to allocate funding by December or the start of next semester.

Read the rest of this entry »

Yesterday marked the launch of the Georgetown chapter of the anti-nuclear weapons campaign Global Zero.  The Georgetown Global Zero kick-off was marked by a speech from former Special Representative of the US President for Arms Control, Non-proliferation, and Nuclear Disarmament Ambassador Thomas Graham Jr., who spoke about nuclear proliferation and President Obama’s chairing of the UN Security Council.

Global Zero began last year when over 100 world leaders came together to talk about reducing nuclear weaponry in the modern world. It also emphasizes exposing college students to the topic of nuclear proliferation, and engaging them through summits and leadership programs.  The initiative has garnered much support from political figures around the world, including former US President Jimmy Carter and SFS Professor Anthony Lake.

“The purpose of the speech is to provide insight into Obama’s Security Council session, share [Graham’s] opinions about current proliferation issues, and motivate students to get involved with the Global Zero effort,” Michael Pucci (SFS ‘11) explained.

There is also great significance in President Obama’s chairing of the Security Council. “No sitting US president has ever addressed the UN Security Council before,” Global Zero Field Director Cristina Moon said.

The speech was live-streamed to 13 other universities across the United States, including Brown, University of Pennsylvania, and UC-Irvine, all of which were also launching chapters of Global Zero.

“This is the first event by Global Zero that reaches out to the student community,” said Moon. “We want young people to become leaders of this movement. We are a very pragmatic generation, but idealistic as well.”

It’s only the second week of school, but the Student Activities Commission—long known as student organizations’ favorite bureaucratic body on campus—is already off to a great start in solidifying its relations with club leaders.

Two separate group leaders (who both requested anonymity out of concern that their clubs would be targeted) emailed Vox to complain about a message sent out by SAC Adviser Bill McCoy yesterday afternoon detailing the approval process for club events.

From McCoy’s email (which you can find in full after the jump):

Something important to note is that SAC’s approval process is just that – an approval process. SAC must offer approval of all of your events, even those that have no funding associated. If your organization’s name is going to be associated with anything more in depth than a meeting, you should begin talking to your Commissioner …

Also, SAC will often approve an event and allocate for space, without allocating anything else including equipment such as tables and chairs. This gives your organization a good faith basis to pursue an event and reserve space through OCAF before your organization has all the details for the event.

Although the policies detailed in the email are not new, according to McCoy, neither club leader was pleased with the message.   One complained:

Based on the highlighted paragraph, it looks like their going to be asserting even more control over student groups this year. As if it wasn’t hard enough to be a student group on campus, now you don’t even have to ask for money in order to bring down the fierce scrutiny of these self-appointed guardians of Georgetown’s morality, political correctness, etc.

Will they be scrutinizing the questions for the next College Dems vs. College Republicans debate? Checking the internal temperature of GUGS burgers? Monitoring the pacing at the Running Club? Is there a point at which groups will say enough is an enough and just disassociate from the University?

Read the full email after the jump!

Read the rest of this entry »