Matt Fernald ’13 discusses the priorities of the AAS.
Two decisions made by the AAS have come to my attention, and I think the student body should be made aware of them.
I learned of the first from my friend in the Outing Club, who told me that the AAS recently chose to stop giving them funding food for their trips, which amounts to $250 per semester.
The second was the decision to reportedly spend $3000 on a late-night ice cream sundae event at Val.
While I am fully supportive of late-night Val events, and particularly of ice cream sundaes (who isn’t?), placing these two decisions side by side makes me wonder: if the AAS is willing to spend so much on an extravagant dessert buffet, why can’t they spare a relatively measly $250 for something so necessary to a school club — especially when one of their main roles on campus is to do just that? They might have saved $250 simply by foregoing two or three toppings from the extensive collection that was on display this past Sunday.
The AAS is doing well, and I do not want to come across as overly negative. I am merely trying to point out ways in which I believe they should be doing better.
I'm the just curious about what went into the decision making process for the funding the club food. The budgetary committee has a very strict set of guidelines and precedents for making funding decisions. I'm not defending their actions, but it's possible that there was a legitimate CONSTITUTIONAL basis for cutting funding. Can anyone enlighten?
Would be happy to - the BC does not fund food for club events or outings, generally. We allow up to $50 of food for intro meetings per semester, and $200 per semester for club events (the classic example is facilitating discussion with a professor after a movie, for instance). We don't fund food for club meetings - and if we funded the Outing Club for food for their event, we would have to fund food for essentially any club that wasn't on campus during a meal, which would be incredibly expensive.
Thanks Chris. That's exactly what I thought. If Matt actually has an issue with this decision, then he has to find fault in the policy itself, and not just the ruling.