University of Virginia Library

Special Study Made
Of Activities Funds

By Tom Adams
Cavalier Daily Staff Writer

A sub-committee of the Student
Council Organizations and
Publications Committee has
made a "Feasibility Study Regarding
Student Council Control
of the Student Activities
Fund."

The sub-committee was
chaired by Gordon Calvert and
the report compiled is a statistical
argument for transferring
the power to allocate student
funds from the Student Activities
Committee to the Student
Council.

Allocation Power

The Student Activities Committee
now has the power for
allocation of student funds. At
present the Committee is made
up Dean B. F. D. Runk; Charles
Calhoun, the President of the
Raven Society; E. Parker Brown,
the President of ODK; Charles
K. Woltz, Professor of Law;
Wendell E. Malbon, Associate
Professor of Engineering; and
Mary E. Whitney, Dean of
Women.

President Shannon makes appointments
to the SAC, which
has no permanent composition.

The study made by the subcommittee
shows that the difference
between the allocations
suggested by Student Council
and the amounts actually allocated
by the SAC has gradually
risen from 1962-63 to this year.

Agreement

In 1962-63 Student Council
and the SAC agreed on all allocations.
During the following
school year the difference was
$1,185, a difference of 5.6 per
cent.

In the school year 1964-65
the difference between the two
groups was $1184 but due to a
larger Student Activities Fund
this was only a 3.1 per cent of
the allocations.

The following year's difference
was only 0.9 per cent but the
year after this percentage rose to
3.1 percent.

This year's differences are the
largest ever, 8.3 per cent or
$2,414.

Questionnaire Study

The sub-committee made a
study of student control of student
funds at other Universities
and Colleges. It sent a questionnaire
to colleges in Virginia,
A.C.C. colleges, seven neighboring
state universities not in the
A.C.C. and to Ivy League colleges
to determine what control
other student governments exercise
with regard to the control
of student funds.

Of the thirty-three schools
which returned completed questionnaires,
17 reported that their
student government exercised
sole jurisdiction in the allocation
of some funds, while 14 reported
that their student government
did not.

Thousands Of Dollars

The amounts allocated by
those student governments exercising
sole jurisdiction in the allocation
of some funds were in
several instances quite large, running
to hundreds of thousands
of dollars.

Virginia Tech, for example
has $500,000 that its Student
Budget Board is allowed to allocate.
The University of Maryland's
Student Finance Committee
is responsible for the distribution
of $360,000.

The University of Pennsylvania's
student government has
$200,000 to dispose of. Brown
University has $51,000 at its
students disposal.

Other Universities, Such as
Princeton and Yale have no student
government funds to dispose
of because most organizations
there are self-supporting,
which is not the case at the University.

The Student Activities Committee,
excluding those funds
that go to The Cavalier Daily,
distributes close to $30,00.

This money comes from student
fees and the Board of Visitors
decides the amount of these
fees. Student Council has recommended
an increase.

Numerous Requests

The Organizations and Publications
Committee of the Student
Council has been flooded
with requests for funds this year
and has not been able to grant
all of them, as opposed to past
years when there were ample
funds for practically all requests.

Members of the Organizations
and Publications Committee were
frustrated this year over the differences
in their recommendations
and those granted by the
Student Activities Committee.

An example of this is the Jeffersonian,
which requested
$4,000 in May of 1967. The
Student Council tabled the request
but it was approved by the
SAC anyway.