The Associated Students Finance and Business Committee met in the State Street room in UCen last night to delegate funds to various student organizations at their first weekly meeting of winter quarter.
The Finance and Business Committee is the financial arm of the A.S. Senate and meets weekly on Mondays to allocate funding to various student groups and other university affiliated projects. At the meeting, the board addressed finance requests and funded GIVE to Isla Vista, the Muslim Student Association, Model United Nations (MUN) and Unión Salvadoreña de Estudiantes Universitarios (USEU) among others.
South Asian student group UCSB Indus requested $2,280 to fund a cultural dance and a cappella concert in mid-February as part of campus-wide cultural awareness week and was granted $1,880 of the request.
The International Student Association also requested $1,564 to fund their “Welcome Back” concert in the Hub this Friday evening and was granted the full amount.
GIVE to Isla Vista is an event held at the end of each academic year where donated student items from students moving out of I.V. in June are sold to the general public in a fundraising event for which the organization gives volunteers to staff the event. The event last year drew over 50 tons of merchandise and provided money to over a dozen student organizations. Of the requested $11,085, the board agreed to fund the group $8,766 to cover costs for a site coordinator, a volunteer coordinator, site clothing and a truck driver.
The Muslim Student Association requested $1,062 for tickets and transportation to attend the 2015 MSA West Conference in mid-January, where MSA chapters from California, Arizona and Nevada will meet for three days to discuss relevant issues related to Muslim identity and collective history. The board passed a motion to fully fund the requested amount and to withdraw $230 in money previously allocated to the group last November.
MUN requested a total of $25,294 for their upcoming events in spring quarter. The board decided to move $517 from the Office of Student Life spring account into an account for Academic teams, and to allocate $5,000 towards hotel fees for MUN.
Unión Salvadoreña de Estudiantes Universitarios (USEU), an organization representing the Salvadoran student community, is holding a two-day annual summit that will include workshops and team building activities for groups from chapters at other campuses. The group requested a total of $1,022 of which $946 was allocated to be spent on muffins, orange juice, coffee, water and other assorted foods and utensils.
According to fourth-year economics and accounting major Angela Lau, 50 percent of the foods purchased can be from Costco, but the other 50 percent need to be purchased from local or organic sources.
“That’s what you all are supposed to tell them during the finance and business workshops,” Lau said. “You say, ‘You still have to use organic foods,’ and they’ll say, ‘Oh, we’re getting our food from Costco, what about them?’ You still have to have 50 percent of it be USDA organic, local.”
Lau said that although the Isla Vista Food Co-op is an option for students to buy organic food, it is not necessary to purchase food there.
“It doesn’t have to be from the Co-op,” Lau said. “The Co-op is automatically local and organic, but you can get it from Costco and have it be organic.”
The Board also passed a motion to fully fund USEU as a one-time exception for the food costs and plan to emphasize spending restrictions in future finance and business workshops.
Other fully funded groups include the professional business fraternity Delta Sigma Pi; the Ecology, Evolution, and Marine Biology department for their 11th-annual Graduate Student Symposium; the Indus organization for their cultural show; and the International Student Association for their welcome back concert this Friday. Recreational computer hacking group SB Hacks also requested $2,000 to help fund an upcoming “hackathon” that promises to draw some 500-600 participants, the motion to fund was tabled indefinitely.
