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BY MATT BLEIMAN

In print | March 20, 2008

The Student Budget Committee has recently expressed an interest in assuming responsibility for the hiring of the Student Activities Committee’s co-directors, rather than allow the Student Activities Office to acquire new members through an internal process. A structural change of this nature would shift the accountability of SAC to students in SBC/Student Council as opposed to the Student Activites Office.

The funds that SAC eventually allocates for parties, study breaks and other social activities originate within the SBC’s annual spring budgeting process, which determines the amount of money that SAC can disburse at its discretion.

This procedure mirrors that of the other sub-committees such as the Forum for Free Speech and the Movie Committee, with one notable exception: while the vast majority of student committee directors are hired by Student Council, the co-directors of SAC are hired by the Student Activities Office. Because the salaries of SAC co-directors are financed by the Student Activities Office, these co-directors are not accountable to SBC or Student Council.

“This has been in the works for years but there have been different mitigating circumstances for why it’s never been able to come up before,” SBC member and Student Council student groups advisor Paul Apollo ’09 said.

“There has been a lot of animosity between SBC and SAC,” Apollo said. “This year relations were cordial enough that SBC came to Student Council with the idea that since all the SAC money is student allocated, the SAC co-directors should be answerable to the student body rather than to the administration.”

This change would include paying for the salaries of the co-directors. According to Apollo, SBC’s desire to change the process was not sparked by any problems with the current co-directors.

“We just felt that philosophically it was a step that needed to be taken,” Apollo said. “It was initially misconstrued on the Activities Office’s side and initially [Administrative Coordinator for Student Activities Paury Flowers] and the co-directors were pretty against the idea.”

Flowers said that much of what SAC does requires administrative support. Tasks she identified as requiring such support included communication with vendors, contracts and working with various departments on campus.

“Given that set of responsibilities, the [Student Activities Office] are the professional staff members most inclined to manage and support the co-directors and we see it as a great way to forge a long-term relationship with SBC and Student Council,” she said.

According to Flowers, there had been a miscommunication with SBC, as in the past SBC leaders have sat on the committee for hiring SAC co-directors.

“What I do think is that this issue highlights the need for more communication between SAO and SBC,” Flowers said. “Our various responsibilities just don’t give us the opportunity to do that as frequently as we should. My hope is that we can come together to change that.”

Student council president Peter Gardner ‘08 indicated that Student Council recognizes the Student Activities Office’s opposition.

“SAC is different than the other focus funding groups in that the school has a perhaps more vested interest in the allocation of that money for student activities on campus,” Gardner said. “Therefore, entirely understandably, the Dean’s Office should have a large part to play in the function of SAC,” he said.

Student Council wanted to clarify their objective to the Activities Office so the two could reach an agreement.

“I think what is important to distinguish, where some confusion came from, was that we don’t want to change the relationship between SAC and the Activities Office,” Gardner said. “All we are trying to do is increase the involvement of the student body in the goings on of that committee,” Gardner said.

The groups have come to an agreement that all of the involved parties (SAC, SBC, Student Council and SAO), will come together and write an official agreement that the SAC co-directors will sign that stipulates exactly what their duties and responsibilities were and how their committee will interact with SBC and the Student Activities Office.

Gardner explained that this way, the involvement of the various committees will be formally established, and Apollo agrees that producing a written agreement is the best way to solve the problem.

“The way we went about it is, just because everyone who is in the game now has an understanding of what is supposed to happen, there is no guarantee of continuity because there is no contract. Maybe when the next director takes over the Activities Office, they won’t know how to handle things as well as Paury does or when the next co-directors come they might know exactly what to do,” Apollo said.

The groups have recently met to discuss plans for better communication in the future.

“I am very satisfied to have had the opportunity to sit down with Student Council, SAC and SBC since we are all here in one capacity or another to ensure that the wider student body has fun,” Flowers said.

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