At yesterday’s Student Government Association meeting, the last before spring break, the senate voted to give $4,750 in spot funding to three chartered student organizations.
The Chemistry Club, Phi Beta Lambda and Women’s Club Volleyball all received money from the student activity fund. The senate also considered a bill that would have created a loan-based financing option for chartered student organizations.
The senate awarded Women’s Club Volleyball $2,313 to help the team participate in a national tournament in Salt Lake City.
The spot funding will help pay for the 11-member team’s and coach’s entry fees, hotel costs and plane tickets.
The senate also voted to give SLU’s chapter of Phi Beta Lambda $652 in spot funding.
The money will help the business-based student organization send its president and vice president to Washington, D.C., to testify before a committee of the U.S. Senate.
Senator Charles Flint, a junior representing the Doisy College of Health Sciences and the PBL president, said PBL’s national office specially selected SLU’s chapter to participate in the congressional hearing.
“This trip will not only help Phi Beta Lambda gain recognition; it will help the whole SLU community gain recognition,” Flint said.
Finally, the senate signed off on the Finance Committee’s recommendation to grant the Chemistry Club $1,785 in spot funding.
The Chemistry Club will use the money to send some of its members to a national conference. The organization is typically able to raise its own funds for the trips by selling laboratory safety goggles; however, this year the bookstore included goggles with chemistry students’ book orders, depriving the Chemistry Club of its big money maker.
Not all the night’s requests for spot funding met with the senate’s approval. The Residence Hall Association asked for $1,830.92 to help send its executive board to a national conference in Berkeley, Calif. During questioning, Residence Hall Association President Nate Howard, a senior in the College of Arts and Sciences, reported additional sources of funding that the Finance Committee had not taken into account in determining its spot-funding recommendation. The senate voted to send the organization’s request back to the Finance Committee for reconsideration.
The senate also considered a bill that would have created a new financing option for chartered student organizations.
Written by Christine Campbell, a senior commuter senator and member of the Finance Committee, the bill would amend the SGA constitution to allow student organizations to loan money from the student activity fund.
SGA now has only two ways to distribute funds to chartered student organizations-annual funding and spot funding. Campbell said that the proposed system would lend itself to groups seeking support for fundraising efforts.
Following a long period of questioning, the senate voted to table to the bill until the next SGA meeting.
“We decided to table the bill because it’s midterm time, and everybody is tired. Also, the bill was too skeletal and undeveloped. For example, we need to know how groups that default on the loan will be penalized. Finally, this bill poses some serious constitutional issues that need to be considered before our next meeting,” Michael Heithaus, a senator representing the School of Law, said.
