Students for Life and Una topped the agenda at the Wednesday, Feb. 20, meeting of the Student Government Association.
Last week, after the SGA tabled a bill allocating $0 to Students for Life SFL was told to seek funds from departments on campus before returning.
SFL received $250 from the Department of Student Life and $100 from Campus Ministry, according to School of Public Service Senator Kevin Grillot. Grillot asked SGA to amend the bill to give $10 to SFL. The $10 would bring the organization’s total funding to $500, including $140 in annual funding already awarded.
Although the SGA refused Grillot’s request, senators collected $10 from their own pockets to give to the organization. Business School Senator Sean Flanagan said the request to amend the bill for such a small amount seemed like more of a “statement” from SFL.
In an interview following the meeting, Grillot agreed that the amount itself was “miniscule, but [SFL] had done everything that SGA asked . [the refusal of the amendment] shows a lack of continued support throughout the year.”
Financial Vice President John Curry, who headed the Finance Committee that recommended the $0 allotment in last week’s meeting, encouraged the Senate to “seriously consider all amounts of money and the bigger picture,” while President Andrew Clifton praised SFL.
“They came up having raised $350, so lets applaud them,” Clifton said.
Later in the meeting, debate ensued over the wording of a resolution that initially encouraged administration to “cooperatively work together to bring ‘A Memory, A Monologue, A Rant, and A Prayer’ back to campus.” Pat Devney, College of Arts and Sciences Senator, presented the resolution.
Alejandra Iberico-Lozada from Una spoke about the history of “The Vagina Monologues” conflict and how Una found “A Memory, A Monologue, A Rant, and A Prayer” to bring to campus instead, citing former Director of Student Life Adam Peck, Ph.D., as an impetus to choose the new piece since “The Vagina Monologues” was sent off campus for being redundant, Iberico-Lozada said.
“The coupling of [‘The Vagina Monologues’ and ‘A Memory, A Monologue, A Rant, and A Prayer’] makes it difficult to disassociate them,” said Dean of Students Scott Smith, “and brings back issues from [last year].
“Had we had the opportunity in advance, we could have helped decouple the two. We did not have the opportunity,” Smith said.
He went on to say that the door between Una and administration was not closed.
“We invited them to come in . to some degree. I don’t want to set up false hope,” Smith said. “My impression is that administration doesn’t want anything to do with [the] V-Day [campaign].”
After dispute about the wording of the initial resolution, senators briefly suspended the rules, and a new bill was introduced with a revised “intent and purpose” that changed the bill from encouraging the administration to bring the play to campus, to encouraging administration to “revisit the issue and cooperatively investigate avenues” to bring the play to campus. The new bill was passed unanimously.
Also in Wednesday’s meeting:
Flanagan introduced a bill to amend SGA bylaws that was automatically tabled until next week. The proposed amendment said that the Finance Committee shall “review the student activity fee annually to determine the adequacy of the current fee in terms of student involvement and activity.”
Bills reconfirming and seating members of the Academic Affairs Committee, the Commuter Concerns Committee, the Constitution and Rules Committee, the Committee for External Affairs, the Finance Committee, the Food Services Committee, the Committee for Information Technology Concerns, the Residential Affairs Committee and the Social Justice Committee were unanimously passed.
