Members of the Undergraduate Assembly clashed Sunday night in a nearly two-hour debate over a contingency request.
Penn for Palestine requested funds for food for its first annual Palestine Night to be held Nov. 9, having already reached out to nine other sources for funding beforehand.
The debate centered around the purpose of the contingency fund, not the merits of the event itself.
The UA Budget Committee recommended to the UA that the body not grant the organization any money because the relevant bylines state that the contingency fund should not be used toward food if food is an “ancillary expense,” UA Treasurer and Wharton senior Ryan Houston said.
Debate ensued as to whether food was central to the event, not just an “ancillary expense,” and whether a previous case of the UA funding food was grounds enough to fund Penn for Palestine, as well. Attendees also discussed what kind of precedent this case might set if they grant this group the money, concerned that too many other groups would start coming to the UA for food funding.
The UA wrestled with two amendments granting the group varying fractions of their request for $1,000, but ultimately voted in a tight count against both, leaving Penn for Palestine to work with funding it had already received from other sources.
After UA Speaker and Wharton and Nursing senior G.J. Melendez-Torres had the body “all just take a deep breath,” they proceeded to unanimously pass a resolution to fund a new program, PennApps Labs.
The funding will pay a student programmer to develop an online database of study spaces on campus, a program idea which the UA discussed before the PennApps competition took place in September.
The resolution, authored by several UA members, describes the database as “a web or mobile app that lets users say, ‘I have 4 people in a group, and we need a place, somewhere near 36th and Spruce, from 4PM to 6PM that has a whiteboard’ and get a list of suggested study spaces nearby.”
The resolution allocated $2,250 — money gained from cutting the lagging New York Times readership program — toward paying the programmer with the aim of competing with a teaching assistant’s salary.
UA President and College senior Matt Amalfitano said he believes the passing of the resolution will encourage University offices such as the Vice Provost for University Life to eventually fund PennApps Labs, as well.
The study spaces database should be ready for student use at the start of the spring 2011 semester.
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