UA members clash over Ivy Council funding

Undergraduate Assembly members became heated at Sunday’s meeting as members participated in a spirited, if not confrontational, debate.

The majority of the meeting was focused on a controversial budget request from Penn’s Ivy Council delegation. The remainder of the meeting focused on on-going projects.

The group requested that the UA’s Contingency Fund cover expenses needed to send a delegation to the Ivy Council Fall Colloquium, an annual conference during which delegations from across the Ivy League meet to discuss student government issues. The conference will be held this weekend at Dartmouth College.

The UA’s Budget Committee recommended that the Contingency Fund allocate no money, saying that the fund is used only as a last resort for student groups that have exhausted all other possibilities and thus should not be used to help UA members attend a conference.

College junior and Ivy Council representative Mo Shahin said this was a last resort for Penn’s delegation. The committee, however, argued that in the past, it was suggested that the group request funds from the Provost or Vice Provost for University Life, which the group did not do.

The committee said the group was expressly told last year that if they were to receive funding from the UA, they should apply for line-item funding at the end of the school year, which they did not do. Since it is a conference that occurs every year, they said, the group should have known to request line-item funding earlier.

The committee added that if money were to be taken from the Contingency Fund now, there may not be enough available at the end of the year for student groups that need it.

Shahin said the UA would be hurting itself by not funding this event, since the conference would facilitate the work of the UA by giving members a chance to compare Penn’s policies to those of other Ivy student governments.

On the other hand, some members wondered if missing the conference would really harm the UA at all, implying that the Colloquium might not be relevant. This notion resulted in impassioned responses from members who defended the conference.

However, the Budget Committee said the recommendation was based on the role of the Contingency Fund, not the relevancy of the conference.

After much debate, the UA passed the Budget Committee’s recommendation, and the delegation was not funded.

Project updates were also discussed. Wharton sophomore and UA member Faizan Khan presented his new Philadelphia Resource Guide, which contains a list of web sites and discounts for students to use.

A sponsorship by The New York Times has given the UA $2,500 for the year to award to other student organizations. The body discussed possible ways to allocate the money.

Another discussion centered around library hours. College sophomore and UA member Amanda Young and Wharton sophomore and UA secretary Faye Cheng drafted a survey to gauge if extending library hours would be relevant to most students and whether a change would be possible.

Please note All comments are eligible for publication in The Daily Pennsylvanian.