The Badger Herald: News: Organizations present cases to finance committee

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Organizations present cases to finance committee

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By Allie Tempus
Tuesday, September 18, 2007 12:00 a.m.

2 Vote 0 Votes

A recent lawsuit against the University of Wisconsin did not stop the Roman Catholic Foundation from making a bid for more funding to the Associated Students of Madison's Student Services Finance Committee Monday.

"We were planning on doing this way before we thought about doing the lawsuit," Beth Czarnecki, chair of RCF-UW, said. "This is just standard operating, just going along with what we always had planned."

In addition to RCF-UW, the Jewish Cultural Collective and Promoting Racial and Ethnic Awareness were given eligibility hearings at the meeting, all requesting general student services funds, which would provide them the money to operate their respective organizations over the next two academic years.

Each group gave a 10-minute presentation in which they argued their case for funding, followed by a question-and-answer session with SSFC members.

What distinguishes RCF-UW from other groups at the meeting was its pending lawsuit against UW.

In RCF-UW's presentation, Czarnecki and RCF-UW Vice Chair Craig Griffie highlighted various events and leadership opportunities that the organization provides for UW students, including welcome events, a minicourse series and guest speakers.

Czarnecki said the events and meetings all present information "from a Catholic perspective."

During questioning by SSFC members, Czarnecki said the main service RCF-UW provides to students is an opportunity to explore the Catholic faith.

SSFC Vice Chair Katrina Flores asked Czarnecki and Griffie if RCF-UW would be able to operate without funding from GSSF.

"[Without GSSF] we wouldn't be able to really fulfill our mission," Czarnecki said. "We wouldn't be the same group."

In light of the lawsuit, SSFC Chair Alex Gallagher said that he has taken measures to ensure RCF-UW's eligibility hearing was treated objectively.

"What I really have emphasized to the committee members is that they need to distance what we do as a committee from the relationship between RCF and the university," Gallagher said. "When they approach RCF, they need to treat it equally like every single other group."

Czarnecki is confident the lawsuit will have no effect on RCF's eligibility.

"I don't think there would be any reason for it to, because we meet all the criteria they've listed, and based on that, we should be able to be getting eligibility," Czarnecki said. "We'll just cross our fingers on that decision on Thursday, but we think the board was pretty receptive with us."

The Jewish Cultural Collective stated in its presentation that it relies solely on funding from GSSF, and has operated with that funding the past four years to reach, according to JCC Chair Alex Sheridan, upwards of 20,000 students.

PREA, a group that deals with issues of race and deconstruction of "the white privilege," is focused on realizing its vision to become more of a campus institution after a two-year hiatus, which PREA members said GSSF could help them achieve.

SSFC will decide on RCF-UW, JCC and PREA's GSSF eligibility on Thursday.

The committee also decided Monday night to grant Greater University Tutoring Service and Adventure Learning Program eligibility to receive GSSF funding, as both clearly met funding criteria, Gallagher said.

InterVarsity Graduate Christian Fellowship was denied eligibility due to its inaccessibility to the entire UW population and failure to fulfill other GSSF requirements, Gallagher said.

2 Comments | Leave a comment

Anonymous | September 18, 2007 2:14 PM | Reply

RCF-UW…UWRCF?

Anonymous | September 18, 2007 9:24 PM | Reply

I hope PREA can distinguish its functions from MCSC, or else it would be in violation of the eligibility criteria, i hope the SSFC thinks about that before it carelessly doles out our money.