Student Union

So this is my first weekly Treasury Recap Blog (not to mention my first blog ever!)  Each week after Treasury, I will recap what went on in the meeting, the appeals heard, and some of the main arguments to fund/not fund each appeal.

This week in Treasury we had two new members sworn in to the body: Courtney Reeves (me!) and Eliot Walker.  It was also “Bring a friend to Treasury” night, which made for a full house and a lot of participation from non-treasury members.  The appeals heard were for two speakers and a conference.  The overarching concern all night long was the limited amount of funds remaining in the appeals account (~$45,000) and the large number of pending appeals. 

Appeals:

Chinese Students Association
Speaker – Jennifer Lee “Tales of the Fortune Cookie”
Requested: $2,486.63
Funded: $1,009.00

Chinese Students Association appealed to the Treasury to bring Jennifer Lee, author of “Tales of the Fortune Cookie” to campus to speak about the history of modern day Chinese food.  The amount funded reflects the cost of bringing Jennifer Lee to campus, the honorarium, and room/equipment set up.  The requested amount included the cost for food brought in from Chinese restaurants around St Louis for a “taste testing/judging”.  Treasury believed that the food added to the value of the event; however, taking into consideration unused allocations from Budget Committee for food, outside donations, and promised fundraising from the group, Treasury felt that the cost of the food could be covered by the group and decided to not fund the food portion of this event. 
For the speaker, some members of the body felt that the speaker was expected to draw too small of an attendance to merit spending $1,009 of the already small amount of remaining funds.  Other members of the body felt that this speaker plus the food would draw more students and be a culturally interesting event for the students of WashU.  The final decision was to fund at $1,009.


Black Pre-Med Society
Conference – Student National Medical Conference
Requested: $4,080
Funded: $0

The amount requested by Black Pre-Med Society reflects the total cost of registration for the conference, airfare (50% subsidy), and hotel rooms for 12 people to attend the Student National Medical Conference.  Treasury voted unanimously to fund this appeal at $0.00.  This decision was reached based on the belief that this conference focused mainly on personal development and networking for the individual students attending, and would not bring back sufficient value to the group or campus as a whole.  With the limited amount of funds left in the appeals account, and the mainly individual focus of the conference, Treasury voted that this would not be a responsible use of the student activities fee. 


Jewish Student Union
Speaker – Anita Diamant
Requested: $7,020
Funded: $0

This was a very challenging appeal for Treasury.  The body debated extensively about the merits of having a well-known and interesting speaker on campus versus the lack of funds and logistical concerns surrounding the event.  This appeal was not funded by Treasury in the end.  There were numerous concerns about the logistics of the event including whether or not the contract had been signed (Treasury cannot allocate money to events for which contracts have already been signed), the publicizing for the event, and the large amount of non-WashU attendees.  Treasury felt that with the limited available funds, it would not be fair to the students of WashU to fund the entire cost of the event if more than half of the expected attendees were non-students who did not pay an activities fee.  Finally, concerns were expressed about the large amount of the appeals account already allocated to speakers on the campus (~$72,000, over half of the total amount spent thus far this school year).  Taking all of these concerns into account with the limited funds available, Treasury voted to not fund this event.


Treasury is every Tuesday at 9:00pm, room 120 in Simon Hall.  All students are welcome to attend any meeting.  We have a lot of interesting appeals coming up, including a speaker appeal by WUnderground for “April Fools Day with the Onion”.  Check back next Wednesday for your Treasury Recap!

-Courtney Reeves
Treasury Representative
Budget Committee Member


Note:  The items summarized in this blog are my personal recount of the general discussion during Treasury.  It is expressed through my personal views and is not meant to officially represent the opinions of every individual Treasury Representative.