Newly elected Student Activities Commission Chair Jack Appelbaum (COL ‘14) sat down on Tuesday to discuss his visions for SAC and the challenges that face the system. Interview conducted and transcribed by Fatima Taskomur.
What are your overarching goals for the year?
We’ll reform the funding process and I hope to develop that process and really internalize it … so groups can successfully use it to help their program [and] benefit their program. Hopefully address some of the difficulties that groups face, whether it be from the Office of Campus Activity Facilities or other University organizations and try to kind of address and alleviate those concerns, make it easier to make events and funds approved … and help with space issues on campus, which is a struggle that all groups face.
How do you plan on achieving this?
We’ll use some Google forums and some resources that exist in the university. We will be using technology to reach the groups and give us feedback directly, so they don’t have to go to a forum. We’ll obviously continue to have roundtables, but we find that it’s a very similar group of people that come to all those. … We can use meeting times to brainstorm ways to address concerns.
What is the setup of the new funding system, if it gets passed?
It is in the process of being drafted into formal documents that can be released to groups. We’re going to be releasing a final draft to student groups on Thursday evening and then I think Andy [Koenig]’s going to formally announce it, and we’re going to have a meeting on Saturday to discuss and vote on the funding process to meet our October 30 deadline.
Can you give some details on the new system?
It’s complex. There’s a lot that goes into it. … The first point is that it’s going to be a budget process. Groups will give budgets and costs for what they need. There is a separate travel fund, and increased percentage just for travel. There is a separate “ad hoc fund” so groups can come and get additional funding throughout the semester. There is streamlined approval process where events that don’t meet certain risk factors can be approved without a vote but only with signatures by commissioners and chairs.
There is a new process of incentives that will penalize groups for going a certain amount into the red zone … that’s to help keep groups from both overbudgeting and overspending because we want groups to hit what they need, and we’re trying incentivizing that by putting in penalties. But we have cushion space to help student groups. It’s about finding that balance about where do we have to put limits to keep groups from going too far and where can we give groups some autonomy and understand the difficulties that groups face with budgeting. These were not in the past systems.
What are some challenges facing the new system?
The biggest challenge is that we just don’t know what we might encounter. We’ve tried to address as many concerns as we can but there is not really a way to test run a system with SAC funding. Groups had concerns, we tried to address all of that, and I think we’ve done a good job. We have no real way of knowing if the system works until we actually implement it…. I’m only speaking on behalf of myself, not on behalf of the other commissioners. I support the system, I think the system will be implemented but we have no way of knowing that until the commission votes and until they express their views.
Appelbaum answered one more question in a follow-up email.
What is the Student Group Union’s role, and is it fulfilling a niche that the school needs?
I think the SGU can play a very positive role on campus. Most importantly, I think it can promote collaboration between student groups, which can lead to co-sponsorships, better organization, etc. I think this will improve programming on campus.
