The Student Government Association (SGA) discussed a bill for funding Foreign Affairs Symposium (FAS) seats at its weekly meeting on Tuesday in Charles Commons. Executive Treasurer Matthew Bee sponsored the bill, which proposed an allocation of $500 in support and sponsorship of SGA events in return for eight reserved seats at each event for SGA representatives.
Although the bill has yet to be approved, SGA members have been receiving free reserved seating at FAS events this year. Executive President Jack Bartholet explained this is because he committed the money to the FAS cause before actually signing the bill into action.
“I accept responsibility,” Bartholet said. “We should never have had a bill without running it through the Senate. I wrongfully committed the money, and I apologize for that, but I still think we need to honor this commitment. Now we owe them the money so we need to allocate it.”
Bee said the SGA should not allocate funds before passing a bill.
“We shouldn’t make agreements before we have it actually pass through the SGA Senate,” he said. “It is something that we should hold ourselves to in the future.”
Junior Class Senator Liam Haviv took issue with this bill and the arrangement made between the SGA and the FAS, stating it seemed to corroborate a form of bribery.
“This is an issue because SGA members were given seats [at FAS events] using the SGA budget, which is not what our budget is for,” Haviv said. “Our budget is meant for student organizations, not for us to get seats at FAS events. Sponsorship occurs when groups work together to make an event happen. We didn’t do anything. We went, sat and watched their event, and we gave them money. We’re not included in FAS events or anything like that.”
Haviv thinks SGA members should pay for their own seats. Bartholet agreed, contradicting his original reasoning.
“I don’t think it’s really appropriate to buy seats for ourselves,” Bartholet said. “I think there were initially good reasons for doing it but now, looking at it more meta, I think it may be considered a kind of nepotism and not what we should be spending students’ funds on. If we were to practically use the seats, give them to professors to get to know them better or give the seats to other students, that would make more sense.”
Some SGA members disagreed, citing that this is merely another form of sponsorship, as with any other student organization.
“I understand how this may be construed as bribery, but it works the same way that we have different fraternities and organizations ask us for funds to provide services,” Junior Class Senator Adelaide Morphett said. “We are helping to fund [FAS] events and in return we are getting better seats. I just don’t think that we should jump to the term ‘bribery’ for what we’ve been doing for 10 years or so.”
Senior Class Senator Max Wilde proposed rewriting the bill to make it more ethically acceptable.
“We do need to pass it now, this year, because we have already taken the service, but I think we could change some of the language in the bill,” Wilde said. “The bill puts it rather bluntly — the fact that we exchanged seats for sponsorship. It’s more like we’re giving them money so they can fund their events.”
Freshman Class Senator Akshay Bhamidipati argued the merits of the bill are irrelevant at the moment since the funds have already been allocated.
“The ethics behind this can be discussed next year,” Bhamidipati said. “But right now this is an issue of the student groups’ trust in us, as the SGA, and the loss of trust if we do not fund them at this point.”
After making an amendment to modify the language in the bill and adding another point under the bill’s “Purposes” section, the Senate voted in on the bill. It passed with two abstentions and one vote against it.
Two other bills were also introduced to the floor and passed with an overwhelming majority.
The first bill, also sponsored by Bee, requested SGA funding for Phi Gamma Delta’s (FIJI) and Reserve Officers Training Corps’ (ROTC) annual charity event known as The Push. In teams of eight, participants attempt to push an army Humvee across the Homewood practice field to raise money for the United Service Organization (USO). Participants are required to raise a minimum of $10 in order to register.
The second bill, sponsored by Wilde, requested SGA funding for a T-shirt tie-dye event accompanying the Hopkins vs. University of Maryland lacrosse game on April 30. With the help of the SGA and the Student-Athlete Advisory Committee (SAAC), the athletic department will be able to provide 500 free T-shirts in the days leading up to the game. The request asks the SGA to provide $1,000 and SAAC to give $500.
SGA also discussed its upcoming elections. Current members are in the process of preparing transition documents and events to help prepare for a smooth changeover.
“We are trying very hard to make the process more transparent this year,” Bartholet said. “We are trying to make it a more open process that the entire school is more involved with.”
