SFB felt the effects of the budget constraints at its meeting on Wednesday, Oct. 15. The Black Student Union (BSU) requested $6,212 for Kevin Powell, best known for his role in the first season of MTV's The Real World, to be the keynote speaker for its annual pre-Kwanzaa celebration.
"It is a valid request," Craig Gross, SFB chairperson said. However, the request would consume almost one third of the remaining special appropriations request money for the year, $20,845.81.
Cheonette Petion, freshman representative, said, "I urge everyone to stop paying attention to the numbers, and more to the benefits of the campus community."
BSU requested $6,000 for Powell's fee and $212 for a Signal ad and three technological service workers. The event would be free to the entire campus community.
Mike Becktel, representative at large, reminded SFB that the Asian American Association contributed half the money for their speaker, the grandson of Mahatma Gandhi.
BSU did no fundraising for the event, and has $633 in its fundraising line.
Jared Breunig, director of communications, suggested deciding if enough people would still attend if a ticket price were set. If they would not, it is not worth the money, he said.
A motion for $0 funding failed with a vote of 1-13-0.
A motion to table the request passed 12-2-0.
The Homecoming Committee received full funding of $395 for trophies, police, referees and cups of ice for the powder puff game and cheerleading competition on Oct. 26. The motion passed 10-1-2.
Gross said the $200 for the police would come out of the police fund.
The Homecoming Committee also made a special appropriations request of $1064. They received $632 of this, with a vote of 10-3-0.
The request included spirit week equipment ($240), homecoming king and queen equipment ($152), staffing shirts ($240) and carnival expenses ($432).
Breunig said he was not comfortable giving $432 for a carnival when it is not for the students. "Out of the 6,000 students on campus, a small amount of their money would be going out to help outside kids have fun," Breunig said. "The Student Activities Fund (SAF) is for the students here to have fun."
"We just had Community Fest to be all philanthropic and all," Cilia said. "Homecoming is for TCNJ only. It's our event, no one else's."
A motion for full funding failed 2-8-1.
The motion that passed, for $632, included everything requested except for the carnival expenses.
The White Ribbon Campaign requested a new club budget of $1,136. They received $436 with a vote of 11-2-1.
Seven hundred dollars of the request is for splashguards for the urinals on campus. On the splashguards would be written "In your hands you hold the power to stop rape." President Caitlin Stinneford, said this is effective because "there is a captive audience. They're not going anywhere."
The request also includes ribbons, publicity and programming money for the international "16 Days of Activism to end Gender Violence," from Nov. 25 to Dec. 10.
The motion for $436 that passed included everything but the money for the urinal splashguards.
The Opera Theatre received a unanimous vote for full funding of $3,751.50 for the performance rites for the "Mystery of Edwin Drood," to be performed Nov. 13-16.
The Men's Club Soccer team received a unanimous vote for full funding of $550 for practice balls, and referee and game fees.
BSU also made a conference request of $1,533.99 for 10 members to attend the fifth annual youth & College Leadership Summit, Nov. 21-23 in Baltimore. They received $734 with a vote of 7-4-2.
The motion that passed for $734 raised personal contributions to $100 each.
Transportation fees of $200 were approved for the tabled request of PEANUTS and GUTS for a trip to the Rocky Horror Picture Show. The motion passed 12-0-2.
Oct. 22 Meeting
The Korean American Student Association (KASA) received full funding of its $700 request for the Sori-Mori Philadelphia Korean Cultural Troupe and Beth Maso, a separate solo drummer, to perform on campus Nov. 16 as a part of Experience Asia.
SFB voted 9-1-3 to fund this request.
The Sori-Mori Philadephia Korean Cultural Troupe is "a group of Koreans in Philadephia engaging in the traditional Korean folk art of Pungmul" (www.sorimori.org). Pungmul is a traditional type of Korean folk music.
The Sori-Mori Philadephia Korean Cultural Troupe requested $600 from KASA for their performance.
Maso's solo performance will add to the presentation with two different styles of drums. Maso did not request any money to per
form, but KASA requested $100 to give to her, as she will be traveling from Connecticut to perform at the College.
BSU returned with its conference request from the previous week's meeting to attend the fifth annual Youth & College Leadership Summit, Nov. 21-23 in Baltimore.
BSU previously received $734 out of their request of $1,533.99 for three members of BSU, and one member each of the African-American Cultural Awareness Association, Caribbean Student Association, Gospel Choir Ministries, National Association for Black Accountants, National Council for Negro Women, National Society of Black Engineers and Minority Association of Pre-Health Students to attend the conference.
This time, BSU received $1,084 with a vote of 8-5-0.
BSU's new request for the conference was for $1,433.99, with the personal contribution set at $30.
Roy Johnson, president of BSU, said BSU does a lot of programming and offers a lot of skills that benefit the whole community.
Jennyfer Nesci, director of finance, said she would like to see the personal contribution set at least at $50.
Kevin Croissant, sophomore representative, made a motion for $1,233.99, which would raise the personal contributions to $50 a person.
Rachel Forman, junior representative, said none of the actual programs directly had to do with programming.
Breunig suggested having half of the members go and later discuss with the remaining members what they learned at the conference.
The motion for $1,233.99 failed 0-13-0. Another motion was made for the contributions to be raised to $65 each. This motion, for $1084, passed 8-5-0.
Lions Athletic Pride received $156 out of its request of $216 to hold a picnic at the Cross-Country New Jersey Athletic Conference (NJAC) race on Nov. 1 at Washington's Crossing State Park, 15 minutes from the College. The motion passed 8-4-1.
A motion for full-funding failed 6-7-0.
Cilia said the majority of the beneficiaries would be the runners, their families and friends.
A motion for $156, subtracting $60 from the request, passed. SFB suggested that Lions Athletic Pride to charge non-students $1.
SFB tabled White Ribbon Campaign's request of $2,319 for Jackson Katz, a leading anti-sexist male activist to speak at the College on Nov. 18.
Katz's normal fee is $4,000, but Katz said he is willing to negotiate. White Ribbon Campaign requested $3,000 for Katz.
SFB tabled the request 13-0-0 because they would like to see documented proof that Katz is willing to accept this price.
Gross, said "I do applaud them for finding $1,000 from the departments," as the organization will be receiving this money from the General Education and Women and Gender Studies departments.
SFB changed its voting method for motions to a tally vote in which each member will say "yay," "nay," or that he or she is abstaining. Previously, votes for motions were done through hand-raising.
