UA budget doles out $1.45M, up 5.4 percent

The Undergraduate Assembly divided up $1.45 million between the different student government branches yesterday.

The budget, which comes from the general fee that students pay with tuition, increased 5.4 percent from last year.

The Social Planning and Events Committee received $598,697 in the budget, a 10 percent increase from last year -- the increase will help fund facilities and productions costs for concerts.

The Student Committee on Undergraduate Education received about $27,600, an increase of about $2,500 from last year.

The Nominations and Elections Committee received $13,635, a decrease of about $1,500 from last year.

The Senior Class Board received an additional $3,000 for Performing Arts Night.

The budgets for the other class boards as well as the New Student Orientation budget remained the same.

At press time, the budgets for the UA and Student Activities Council had not yet been decided.

SAC, which receives whatever funds are not allocated to the other branches, was planning to contest SPEC and SCUE's increases.

One of the of the biggest topics of contention was the UA Budget Committee's recommendation to decrease the funds for preceptorials -- "mini-classes" run by students and faculty ranging in topic from wine-tasting to business etiquette.

However, the UA ultimately decided to increase preceptorial funding from $10,000 to $13,000.

The Provost's Office matches the UA's budget for preceptorials to help fund the program.

Several UA members argued that the program has been mismanaged in the past and that some of the preceptorials were too expensive.

The increase will allow the program -- which typically has to reject an average of 400 students per semester -- to add seven more preceptorials next semester.

The UA also removed $600 from SCUE's budget which would have been used to advertise the "Take a professor to lunch" program.

All UA members, as well as the chairman and an additional member from each branch, will be required to attend training for identifying high-risk drinking and alcohol abuse in order to access their funds.

Twenty-three of the 33 UA members attended the meeting.

"I consider that disappointing," UA Chairman Jason Levine said. "This is the biggest meeting of the year."

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