When the power went out in the Busch Student Center, the power in the Student Government Association moved into Reinert. The SGA meeting took place as usual with some minor changes to the agenda.
“It was a bit of an inconvenience to try to find another space to hold the meeting,” SGA President Courtney Anvender said. “We debated whether or not to cancel the meeting, but we decided that we needed to hold the meeting in order to consider the time-sensitive spot-funding requests.”
After a report regarding the recipients of the Upperclassman Scholarship, SGA moved on to address two spot funding bills.
First, the Saint Louis University Club Tennis Team requested $3505.88 to attend a national tournament in North Carolina. Financial Vice President Tim Janczewski stated that the finance committee recommended allotting the group $2343.88 in accordance with the 60/40 split plane ticket cost policy. The senate voted to pass the funding bill.
Next was a request from Students United for Africa asking for $12,000 to bring speaker Emmanuel Jal to campus. Jal, a former Sudanese child solider turned musician, spoke at SLU in 2009, but SUFA wanted to give new classes a chance to hear his story.
“There’s a war going on in Sudan, if you didn’t know,”said SUFA president John Gallagher. “His effort is to bring awareness to the U.S.”
SUFA brought the bill to SGA on short notice, as Jal’s managers contacted them over spring break to inform them that he would be in town this week. The group’s hope was to bring Jal to campus March 29, which would break the speaker policy of a 20-business day timeline. Janczewski recommended the event be denied funding, as it was not an unforeseeable event.
“Even though the mangers just contacted [SUFA], the group could have planned for a speaker during annual funding,” Janczewski said.
Further concerns were raised about the burden this would place on the student activity fee. SUFA stated they planned to partner with the Center for Social Justice to not only cover the cost, but to also avoid the difficult process of reserving event space.
Gallagher stated that SUFA realized the unrealistic nature of getting the funding, but he hoped for the opportunity to redo their annual funding proposal for the chance to bring Jal next year.
The bill passed, voting to allocate $0 to SUFA.
