| Feature | Apr. 24, 2008 | 8:00 pm |
The status game: how ASG funds (and doesn’t fund) student groups
By
When the Model Arab League (MAL) gained B-status recognition from Associated Student Government during Winter Quarter, the group applied for nearly $6,900 in funding.
“We got $565,” MAL president Sara Larson, a SESP junior, said. ASG offered no explanation for the discrepancy.
Larson, who was not MAL’s president last quarter, presented a one-page proposal with other leaders from her group detailing their contributions to the Northwestern community in the preceding year and what they planned to do with the requested funds. She admitted that the requested amount was ambitious for a new group, but said that knowing whether ASG was displeased with specific plans would have been helpful. Instead, ASG just sends out the allocations.
“They just publish it on this list, and then mail it out to everyone, which says the group name, how much they requested and then how much they were given,” Larson said.
“It’s kind of like a vicious cycle in a way,” she said. “The way that you get more funding is by asserting yourself on Northwestern’s campus and getting a lot more people to come to events and having really good events, but the way that you have those kinds of events is if you have more funding.”
ASG’s three-tier “status” system can be cumbersome, acknowledges McCormick sophomore Vikram Karandikar. Last week he was elected to the position of executive vice president, which deals with funding issues. The job requires working with groups such as MAL and others who are disappointed with their allocated amount of money.
“I understand the privileges that come with getting any sort of status or any other recognition, and I also understand the other side, you know, jumping through hoops,” Karandikar said. He said he gained empathy for student groups’ concerns and frustration about ASG during his campaign.
MAL was not only disappointed by the amount of funds they received from ASG in the winter, but also where the rest of the funds were going.
“Most of it goes towards theater groups, toward DM,” Larson said. “It looks like those groups get a lot more than academic groups like us.”
Currently, A-status groups get 97.5 percent of the total student activities fee, while B-status groups get the remaining 2.5 percent, according to Karandikar. T-status groups are temporary groups that are ineligible for funding and must apply for B-status within one year of initial recognition from ASG.
According to ASG’s status-recognition application, A-status groups are those that demonstrate a clearly defined structure, group stability, financial stability, a need for funding and a direct benefit to the student body. Only B-status groups can petition for A-status upon demonstrating the above criteria for three academic quarters. There are 37 A-status groups, 56 B-status groups and eight T-status groups currently listed on the ASG student group directory.
Karandikar ran on a platform that promised to increase the percentage of funds allocated to B-status groups.
His goal as executive vice president is to increase that amount to 3 or 3.5 percent, Karandikar said. He said he realizes that the increase is modest, but plans to draft an initiative that would allow his successors to continue to increase that percentage. This past winter was the second official funding cycle for B-status groups. Before, funds were only allocated to A-status groups.
But not all groups are frustrated with the system, even if it doesn’t always match funding desires.
“We didn’t get the full award amount that we requested, but we were definitely happy with what they gave us,” Dance Marathon co-chair Tara Corrigan said. DM was ASG’s top-funded B-status group, receiving $2,000.
The Communication senior also said that she was very happy that ASG assigns a group executive to each student group to help the group complete ASG processes for funding and maintaining its status. She said that without the group executive’s help, the process could have easily become overwhelming.
Communication junior James D’Angelo said that the funding levels aren’t the only ASG practices that can lead to frustration.
“There’s a lot of paperwork and red tape you have to follow,” D’Angelo said. “I don’t know that it actually encourages or helps student activities on campus, which is what it’s there for.”
D’Angelo is a leading member of College Republicans, Special Olympics and Students for Saving Social Security. The groups are respectively A-status, B-status and T-status, covering the spectrum of ASG recognition.
D’Angelo said that his biggest frustration is “getting across merit” — proving to ASG that your group deserves funding.
“They base all of their allocation of merit on previous events,” D’Angelo said. “For example, how good the event is, how well publicized, how well attended … but, to me, merit is a little more broadly defined than what is often considered.”
D’Angelo explained that the College Republicans shows merit in its distinctive position as a conservative student group on a liberal campus.
“While there are less conservative students that go out to events, I think it’s important to note that that’s the only venue for those people to see events that align with them,” D’Angelo said.
Getting a share of the ASG funding pie is, of course, the big reason why student groups bother to prove merit to the organization.
“Just because you get B-status doesn’t mean they’ll hand you over money afterwards,” said Weinberg sophomore Taylor Kirch, president of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws-Students for Sensible Drug Policy (NORML-SSDP), which gained B-status last week. “We’ll have to apply [for funding] next winter.”
Dan K said,
April 25, 2008 @ 1:40 pm
Centralized distribution of resources has never functioned efficiently, nor will it ever. I do not understand how the same students I see passing Econ 201 and 202 can eagerly submit to and abide by a system they ought to know is fundamentally flawed.
ASG is broken! No amount of tweaking will ever fix the funding question, for it is based on faulty assumptions. Only markets can effectively and efficiently allocate resources, no matter how smart our “elected” ASG leaders think they are.
David S. said,
April 26, 2008 @ 5:50 pm
This story could use comment from someone on SAFB (preferably the financial VP)
Ashley Meyers said,
April 27, 2008 @ 3:56 pm
This article has a few inaccuracies, and also is missing crucial information that is important to understanding the situation.
When the Executive Committee under Matt Bogusz allocated the B-Status funding pool last quarter, we distributed the allocations along with explanations, in a PDF that was available to senators and student group leaders (and, it might be said, any reporter who had thought to ask for a copy of the funding allocations).
Reading this PDF, or attending Senate, or looking at the Daily article from the next day, would have revealed the following details:
Forty-two groups (or co-sponsorships) applied for funding, requesting a total of $98,027 - and only $21,420.80 is available as the B-Status funding pool. This means that the average amount available (and granted) to each group was only $510.02 (which is one thirteenth of what Model Arab League requested.).
The average amount requested was $2,333.98 (note that Model Arab League requested almost three times that). If you take out the amount requested by DM beyond what they recieved ($29,000) to make this average figure more representative, the average amount requested by groups was $1643.50 - over three times what was available/granted, less that one fourth of what MAL requested.
As a member of the Executive Committee, I can say that we did not use these averages as guidelines - in fact, we did not EVER discuss this average as a ballpoint figure per group. If the intent of funding was to divide the money evenly, we could just do exactly that, cutting the check 42 different ways without a second thought. The intent is to divide money according to group performance, past programming, and the other criteria listed in our guidelines. Nevertheless, these average figures do give some idea of the challenge that the Executive Committee was up against. We constantly work with the administration and in ASG to lobby on behalf of student groups - as advocates for student groups, we think student groups should get ALL the money they deserve.
So, my point is not that Model Arab League’s request was excessive (although it was the highest request besides DM’s - and DM took a different strategy, formally requesting their entire need but only asking us to fund whatever percentage we were able to). MY point is that the B-Status funding pool is far too small. B-Status groups should recieve a larger portion of the A-Status pool, or should apply for A-Status (and perhaps achieving A-Status should be an easier process). In fact, perhaps we should consider doing away with the doing away with the different statuses entirely, and letting all recognized (beyond T-Status) groups apply for the entire Student Activities Fund.
Taniesha Robinson said,
April 27, 2008 @ 5:13 pm
In response to both David and Meyers, the financial VP was contacted and did not make a timely reply. I inquired specifically about Larson’s complaint about funding explanations, but her response came too late for publication. The response, which did detail anything about an available pdf follows.
“Throughout this funding process, the SAFB has been considering some form of publication of explanations. If this decision is taken, they will be released along with the numbers as New Business in Senate on Wednesday April 30th.” – emailed statement from Seva Rodnyansky, ASG Financial Vice-President.
Ashley Meyers said,
April 27, 2008 @ 8:40 pm
Again, this reveals a fundamental lack of understanding about the very subject you’ve tried to write an entire article about. Model Arab League received funding from the B-Status funding pool, allocations which (as I wrote in my comment) are overseen by the Executive Committee, not by SAFB. That means that you would have needed to contact the Executive Vice President, which was Matt Bogusz at the time and is now Vikram Karandikar. While you seem to have e-mailed or interviewed Vik, you didn’t ask him or Matt for a copy of the funding allocations, or about the explanations we sent out with those allocations last quarter.
Dan K said,
April 28, 2008 @ 8:51 am
You are all missing the point. The issue is not that ASG “unfairly” distributes money. The issue is that ASG has authority to distribute money at all. Take away that authority, and everything else falls into place.
Neal said,
April 28, 2008 @ 1:42 pm
This is healthy. But more significant information can be found if we examine the origin of the relationship between SAFB and the Executive Committee, and ASG as a whole for that matter. Upon doing so, we may realize that the rabbit hole goes deeper than just funding…
~A Goal Without an Action Plan is a Daydream~