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Funding body continues strict policy enforcement
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Also by Peter Sielski:
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by Peter Sielski
Friday, September 28, 2007
The Associated Students of Madison's Student Services Financial Committee debated and denied several more organizations eligibility for segregated fees Thursday.
Polygon, a group designed to network engineering students, brought in a debate about the strict eligibility guidelines that can be a requirement if a student group wants eligibility to funding. Being unable to satisfy some requirements, SSFC voted to deny the group eligibility in a unanimous vote.
After analyzing the list of what Polygon offered members, SSFC representative Brittany Wiegand initially tried to pin down items, such as "Career Day," that fulfull this requirement. But other board members disagreed.
"I can't help but see that all these things on the list are just events," SSFC Secretary Kurt Gosselin said. "Career Day to me looks like another event."
Polygon also faced problems with the condition of being accessible to all campus students.
Gosselin noted although technically any student at UW would be able to join, the group appeals too directly to only a small niche on campus.
"I do see problems when students have to be registered with the dean of that college to get into that group," SSFC Vice Chair Katrina Flores said. "This requirement so severely limits access that it would really be an anomaly to see someone outside that college join this group."
The Tenant Resource Center was also denied eligibility with a unanimous vote. Representative Adam Porton said the group was denied because it was originally one group but in order to increase its chances of eligibility, it split in two.
The Student Tenant Union won eligibility, so SSFC automatically denied its duplicate, the Student Tenant Resource Center.
Both the MultiCultural Student Coalition and the Campus Women's Center won eligibility by votes of 4-0 and 5-0, respectively.
At the open forum portion of the meeting, the Roman Catholic Foundation of the University of Wisconsin requested SSFC to reconsider its eligibility status.
According to RCF representative Craig Griffie, the reason they wanted SSFC to reconsider was they felt their previous presentation only focused on the financial dynamic of the organization, which was only a "small part" of what they do.
"In that decision, we only focused on the educational programs, mini-theology courses, but we do more than just event programming," Griffie said. "Mostly we build relationships with UW students who come to our programs."
RCF also brought numerous members to the open forum to speak on their behalf so that, according to Griffe, everyone could get a better idea of the group's functions.
"I was typical freshman lost on campus when I first arrived," Alyssa Schreiber, an RCF member said. "RCF helped me in such a positive way that now I am really interested in doing those things that helped me then."
According to Gosselin, it would take a vote from one of the members who originally voted against the group to bring it into a vote where at least two-thirds would be needed only to reconsider their eligibility status.
SSFC would then hear another presentation, and then vote on whether to grant them eligibility.
No members during the session sought to change their original vote against the group, however, according to Gosselin, those members still may do so at any time.
Anonymous (September 28, 2007 @ 3:58pm):
If the SSFC keeps this up, I will no longer be able to criticize them. What will I do with all my cynicism?
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