The UA Student Services Fee Advisory Board approved 21 of 28 proposals at its final open meeting on Friday evening.
The amount for programs requesting one year of funding approved by the board totaled to $1,977,300. The board also approved $817,300 for programs that requesting two years of funding and $42,500 for three years of funding.
Funds not approved for one through three years of funding came to $3.91 million.
“They [the proposals] have been really diverse, you know, like they are pretty important to our campus,” said Justin Evans, chair of the Student Services Fee Advisory Board. “There are things like Scholarship Universe, ASUA [Associated Students of the University of Arizona] club funding, things within the union [Student Union Memorial Center], just a bunch of different programs that actually do touch on students.”
The funding decisions made by the board are not final, according to Teresa Whetzel, principal financial analyst for Student Affairs. The board sends its recommendations for funding to Melissa Vito, vice president of Student Affairs, who makes the final decision on funding. However, Whetzel said that she has never seen Vito go against the recommendations of the board.
The top-funded proposal from Friday’s open meeting was $150,000 to ASUA club funding for one year, followed by $42,500 per year for three years for Student Legal Services, for a total of $127,500.
“I think this proposal [Student Legal Services] is an extremely valuable resource here on campus,” said board member Hilary Love. “In the form it is in now it has been around for 20 years; some form of legal services has been on this campus for more than 30 years.”
The Graduate and Professional Student Council and UA Student Emergency Medical Services were also allocated funding.
Five proposals were amended at the meeting and approved for less funding than requested.
The Gallagher Theater: Social Programming Improvements proposal requested $60,000 and was approved for $30,000.
The North Plaza Programming Initiative requested $82,200 and was approved for $41,100.
The GPSC Club Funding proposal requested $30,000 and was approved for $15,000.
The UA Student Emergency Medical Services proposal requested $278,900 and was awarded $47,000.
The Speaker Series proposal requested $300,000 and the board approved $50,000.
Proposals turned down by the board included Collegetown @ UA, Cyberbullying Educational Campaign, Finals Week Program, Office of Admissions’ Student Professional Development Series and UA Alternative Breaks.
“In terms of the overall process of this board what is really interesting is we have a group of really dedicated people that spend every week deliberating about these proposals in depth,” said Jeff Rightnowar, marketing director for the board and board member. “We really look at, how many students is this targeting? Is it going to be effective? Is it really the best use of Student Services Fee money? Mostly determined by how students felt on the survey that is sent out earlier in the year.”
