Thursday, November 13, 2008
Student senators disagree over whether KU student groups with student senators in them are more likely to receive funding. Mark Pacey, Manhattan third-year graduate student and finance committee chairman, said this was because student senators understood the rules and regulations of requesting Senate funding and, therefore, would be more successful.
“It’s pretty obvious that having people involved in your group and also in Student Senate helps you get funding,” Pacey said. “But getting more funding is a function of being involved.”
He said, for example, that law school groups received more funding this year because they had graduate senators in the groups. This meant they were involved with Senate and were familiar with the process and what Senate would and would not fund. In his six years of involvement with Student Senate, Pacey said, he noticed that the Mock Trial team was a well-funded group because past finance chairs were members of the club.
Pacey said the format and process was fair, but could always be improved. Every semester, student senators are responsible for contacting student groups and being available to help them with anything they might need from Senate.
“It would make the process better if everybody did their outreach,” he said. “But I hope students know Senate is there to help them with their events.”
Alex Porte, Great Falls, Va., senior and Student Senate treasurer, said it was very clear that a person’s group affiliations often influenced the way they voted. Porte experienced this firsthand. A request he submitted for funding was voted down because some student senators were disgruntled that their event, which was ineligible for funding, had not been approved. But, Porte said, the most frustrating thing was mismanagement of students’ fees. He said some groups were funded more heavily at the beginning of the year and, by the end of the year, Senate had to be very selective in funding because there was not enough money.
“It’s tough for me to see that we fund a group at a high level near the beginning of the year and then sometimes we get toward the end of the year and we have to table all of the legislation,” Porte said.
Some senators disagree, saying that almost all student groups get the funding they request. Ethan Zipf-Sigler, Prairie Village third-year law student, graduate senator and member of the finance committee, said a group’s request for funding had to be excessive or in serious violation of the rules to be rejected.
“We follow the rules as closely as we can,” he said. “But the reality is that pretty much every group gets funding. It’s hard to look at students and say, ‘No you can’t have funding.’”
Zipf-Sigler said student involvement had made no difference in deciding whether a group received funding. He said groups that had senators help them author a request were likely to be more successful because senators understood the rules and process.
“If I had a group that needed $4,000 more, I could probably get them funded because I know what’s going on in their heads when they vote,” he said. “I would tell them, look, you’re asking for $6,000 but if you ask for $12,000 then you get $10,000.”
Zipf-Sigler said, though, that just because senators knew how to work within the system didn’t make it unfair to those outside of Senate. He said the list of senators who were available to represent groups and assist them was available online.
“I certainly think it’s easier to get funding if you have an existing relationship with senators and even easier if you know how finance works, but easy isn’t unfair — it’s just convenience,” he said. “It’s all about taking advantage of opportunities.”
Ryan Lawler, Bolingbrook, Ill., senior and community affairs director for the Student Legislative Awareness Board, said it was unfortunate that knowing people in Senate had an effect on legislation at all. But, he said, that it was just the way governing bodies worked.
“The better you understand the system, the better the results,” he said. “I kind of look at it as the nature of the beast.”
— - Edited by Kelsey Hayes
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