College sophomore Shirley Liang was elected last week as chairwoman of the Student Activities Council, which distributes funding to over 220 student groups on campus.
In an interview, Liang discussed her goals for the semester.
The Daily Pennsylvanian: How did you get involved in SAC?
Shirley Liang: I was the representative for my community service group, and I thought that I really liked it and I thought I could make some changes to the group.
DP: What made you decide to apply for a position on the executive board?
SL: I've always been really interested in all the groups on campus and finding out what they do, and I wanted to take an extra step to make sure that all these groups could do whatever they wanted to.
DP: What are your main goals for this upcoming semester?
SL: My biggest goal is to improve the efficiency of SAC. The most common complaint people have is that they do not understand the [financial] rules and they sometimes cannot get in contact with the right people to find out what is going on. I think that is a huge problem.
We are really happy because we are going to have a brand-new Web site up by the end of the semester, which has been a problem for around two years, and this should make our group's policies easier to understand.
DP: Are there other specific ways to improve communication between SAC and its member groups?
SL: One of the things we are trying to do now is better the relations between SAC [and the groups it funds]. We are also going to be asking for suggestions from the groups at the next general body meeting.
We are hoping that more general body members get involved so we can get better feedback and try to improve as much as possible.
DP: What is your position on SAC's non-retroactive funding policy that says groups cannot get paid back for fees already spent?
SL: It is the policy that we have always had and I don't foresee any changes being made. I also feel that the general body is completely behind us.
DP: What are you looking forward to in the upcoming term?
SL: Something we're happy about is that we got a higher budget from the [Undergraduate Assembly] this year. [Ed. note: The group's budget went up by 3.71 percent to about $716,600.] It's really hard for us to tell groups that we wish that we could fund everything you are asking for because it sounds like you are doing great work, but we only have so much that we can give out. So with the extra increase in budget, hopefully we'll be able to do more than last year.
DP: How do you feel about the new SAC executive board and members?
SL: I am very excited about some of the new members who seem to be very proactive. They are going to start solving problems we have had with debt and trying to bundle costs as much as possible.
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