Student Association voted unanimously to pass this semester’s financial vision during its Monday meeting, creating a new system for funding student organizations.

The financial vision, which lays out how organizations apply to SA for funding, is more comprehensive this year than in past years. SA passed it 15 days earlier than last semester. It was also revealed during the meeting that MayFest will be held on April 29. This year’s MayFest will mark the first year during which guest passes will be available to purchase for non-SU students.

The expanded financial vision creates a new ranking system for funding student organizations based on an organization’s number of successful events. Under the system, organizations fall into four different levels that limit the maximum amount of funding that SA provides to a group.

New organizations or ones without past successful programming will start out on the first level, which caps the maximum amount that SA provides to an organization at $5,000. Organizations with successful programming will move up to the second, third and ultimately fourth tier, which cap the maximum amounts at $12,000, $25,000 or provide unlimited potential resources per event, respectively.

The financial vision contained no mention of University Union, SU’s official programming board, which concerned several members of the Assembly.

SA made UU a key organizer of events around SU, so it would make sense to include UU in the bill to facilitate cooperation and to clarify the organization’s responsibilities, said Dave Woody, an SA representative for the Martin J. Whitman School of Management.

Woody proposed that the Assembly vote to send the bill back to the cabinet to coordinate with UU and improve the financial vision. The proposal was rejected.

SA President Neal Casey said that although Woody made valid points, the main goal was to get the financial vision in place early and work out the subtleties later. 

‘This is just the first step in a long process,’ Casey said. ‘We had an obligation to get it out as quickly as we could.’

Woody acknowledged that this was important but said he hoped his issues with the bill would be addressed soon.

‘I’m just afraid that now that it’s passed, it will end up on the back burner,’ Woody said. ‘I really want the cabinet to take this to heart and go to UU with it.’

Casey and SA Comptroller Jeff Rickert wanted to have the financial vision in place by the start of SA’s required fiscal training for organizations that want to apply for money from SA. In the past, SA never had a passed financial vision in place used to teach the organizations during this training process.

Rickert said the quick decision on the financial vision would help give every organization the best possible chance of getting funded. He also stressed that another goal of this year’s financial vision was to reach a broader audience with the events SA funds.

‘In my opinion, we should be funding more events that not necessarily appeal to different student groups but rather to different groups of students,’ Rickert said.

As for MayFest in April, Casey announced that it will run from 1 p.m. to 6 p.m. SA will make 350 guest passes available before MayFest because many students requested them for this year. The price of these passes is still to be determined.

The Assembly also elected PJ Alampi and Nick Iaquinto, freshmen in the College of Arts and Sciences, and Alyssa Brennan, a freshman in Whitman, to serve on the Board of Elections and Membership. The board’s purpose is to attempt to recruit more students into SA.

The Assembly also elected Sean Herron, a junior policy studies and economics major, to the director of technology position.

Other business discussed:

•  Vice President Jessica Cunnington and others will meet with campus officials about the smoke-free campus initiative on Wednesday. She said she hopes to regroup with officials and set down goals for the session with them.

• The Academic Affairs Committee is looking into making students’ core requirements available on MySlice. The committee is also trying to make MySlice clarify information for the many sections of WRT 105: ‘Practices of Academic Writing’ and WRT 205: ‘Critical Research and Writing,’ none of which have a description that details what topics will be covered.

• In addition, the Academic Affairs Committee is attempting to make SU a site for graduate school exams. Currently, students who take these exams need to travel to Le Moyne College or Onondaga Community College.

• SA is collaborating with University Neighborhood Partnership to create a virtual ride board called RideShark so that students looking for rides home can find carpooling opportunities.

spcotter@syr.edu

Published on January 24, 2011 at 12:00 pm