OK, I was going to just graduate and be done with Northeastern, but an email came into my inbox recently from Laura Wankel, Northeastern’s Vice President of Student Affairs, regarding Student Government Association (SGA) appeal of its budget. The Finance Board, the body that undergrads trust to allocate funds in an unbiased and most practical manner, voted not to grant stipends to any student group for the upcoming year – including SGA. Student Affairs has, without any input of students, overturned the board’s decision and granted stipends in the amount of $27,775 to a total of nine students – effectively allowing for undergraduate money to be allocated at the will of the administration and NOT the student body, which runs 100 percent counter to the mission of the Student Activity Fee (SAF).
Wankel’s rationale for overturning the Board’s decision reads as one written by someone grasping for any straw to support their own beliefs. She says the decision should be overturned for the following reasons:
· Only two of 12 students cast a vote. The rest abstained.
· Senate already approved the budget.
· Authority of the Board to approve budget is a recent addition and is unusual to delegate power to a committee.
· Full discussion before Senate never happened.
· People decided to run for office before decision was made.
· Any executive-board member can decline stipend in 2012-2013.
A decision of the Finance Board may only be overturned for three reasons: the decision of the Board was arbitrary, the Board didn’t follow its procedures, or the punishment was too harsh. None of her rationale fit these criteria. It is irrelevant that only two students voted. According to Roberts Rules, or even conventional wisdom, any majority is fine to pass a piece of business as long as quorum has been met. In this case, the motion passed. If the administration doesn’t like it, bully SGA into changing the rules after the fact, but you don’t get a magic wand to wave and say “do over” just because you don’t like the end result. As per the Senate already approved the budget? No, it approved a budget request. The same way any other student group must debate what they want to request for, so too does SGA, except in a formal way. This was made clear to Senators a ton of times at the meetings in February.
On the same line of thought, her assertion that a full discussion before Senate never happened is complete nonsense. There were two meetings that focused solely on the budget request and the only bone of contention was stipends. To say it wasn’t debated in a full discussion is to live in a fantasy land. Finally, the authority to approve budget by the Finance Board and not the Senate was a process that has been practiced since at least 2003, but was one that was formalized this year in response to former Student Body President Ryan Fox threatening last year – after having his budget request denied for two straight years – to sidestep the Finance Board (and in turn, the student body) by having the Senate approve its own budget. Can you imagine how absurd that would be? A student group voting to give itself however much money it wants? Finally, the logic of “the Senate is smart enough to vote on how much to give themselves, but not smart enough to delegate this power to someone else” is simply mind-boggling.
This decision completely undermines the rule of the Finance Board. If I were still in office, I’d tell my Board to stop showing up to meetings. The administration has proved that what the Board does is meaningless. Seriously – don’t show up and waste four hours on a Thursday night when Student Affairs can just make the decision they want to see in the first place and save us all the time. Gone are the days where the students can say how their money is being spent. Instead, the administration will tell them how it’s being spent.
Let us not forget the whole stipend-funding problem is one that falls on the student body only because Student Affairs stopped footing the bill for SGA stipends a few years ago. Instead of it coming out of their pockets, they want it to come from the students pockets. This isn’t an isolated incident either. More and more the admin sees the Student Activity Fee as its primary source of funding for items. The increased insurance requirements? Just make the SAF incur it. The bastion of the administration’s fundraising efforts – Homecoming? Completely SAF-funded. Summester? SAF-funded. Winter Wonderland? All campus activities pushed, all SAF-funded. These past few years have started a trend of administration control of the SAF, one that Wankel only confirmed with her decision.
Be outraged by this decision, Northeastern. SGA could at least pretend to represent your voice by saying the students that controlled the allocations of the money did so on your behalf. Not anymore. Now it’s the administration using the SAF as a slush fund for costs it doesn’t want to incur. It wants to have its cake and eat it too.
And my message to student groups that get denied from the Finance Board this year? Appeal. Seriously. The administration has proved it will not follow the rules and will give funds to what events it wants to see occur. You might as well try to hop on the gravy train before it crashes.
Anthony Golia was SGA’s Comptroller and chair of the Finance Board for 2011-2012, and a memeber of the Class of 2012.
