Greeks' Share of Student Activity Fee Funding -- UNA (Alabama)

[exlurker]

For those familiar with, or at least aware of, allocations from student activity fee budgets to student organizations -- including Greeks -- the article (below) may be an eye-opening revelation about the $$$ flow at a fairly small public university. According to the article, in the period examined, 55% of the funds went to Greeks. Fascinatingly enough, the student body is reported to be 6,841 while the number of Greeks is said to be 711.

http://www.florala.net/news/article_...3219067b8.html

Reportedly ^^ the $$$ are distributed on a first come, first served basis.

Might be interesting to find out how other universities handle this, and how Greeks tend to fare in the quest for funds.

(The article is from the Feb. 5, 2015 issue of The Flor-Ala, a student paper.)

[exlurker]

East Tennessee -- Funding for Attendance at GLOs' National Conventions:

http://www.easttennessean.com/news/v...ek-conventions

[exlurker]

Southern Illinois -- Edwardsville Student Government Funding for Fall 2015 Party Expenses

At Southern Illinois - Edwardsville, funding from Student Government has been provided for expenses for fall 2015 parties to Greek organizations -- IFC, Phi Kappa Psi, Sigma Tau Gamma, and Alpha Phi Alpha.

http://www.alestlelive.com/news/arti...3bd9c9082.html

Student Government at SIUE recently approved:
“ Inter-Fraternity Council to host the Inter-Fraternity Council’s Annual Foam Party Friday, Sept. 11 for $5,454; Black Girls Rock to host the Black Girls Rock Kickoff Wednesday, Sept. 9 for $2,908; Phi Kappa Psi to host the Phi Kappa Psi Glow Party Friday, Sept. 25 for $2,836; Sigma Tau Gamma to host the Sigma Tau Beach Party Saturday, Sept. 19 for $4,390; and Alpha Phi Alpha to host the 25th Annual Alpha BBQ Sunday, Aug. 23 for $3,608.”

“ According to Student Body President Nasir Almasri, these requests are always granted, despite the high costs.”

[Sen's Revenge]

These are tough issues. I have worked with campuses where Greeks received no budget, campuses where they could only receive money for open projects/programs, and campuses where they got a share of the student activity fund.

I think I generally prefer that GLOs receive funding for programs open to the entire campus and figure things out on their own for conferences/conventions.

[LukeKopp]

This is an interesting question, indeed. I had questioned about whether to open up our Student Activity Fee (SAF) to Greek Life or not. A downside is that the whole purpose of the SAF is to be open to all our students clubs and organizations. I struggle with the idea of giving them portion of the money, when they have events exclusively to their chapter.

All of our other clubs/orgs are required to accept anyone; IE: our Business Club. Even though it is very major-based specific, any of our students have the ability to join the Business Club, even if they are a criminal justice student for example.

Something I will have to keep thinking about -- but I too don't want them not having any amount of money, especially at a smaller institution.

[unarose]

With regards to the UNA Student Activities Fee, one of the stipulations behind organizations being able to receive funding is that the event cannot be a members-only event. Yes, Greeks get a good chunk of the funds from the Student Allocations Committee, but those events do generally have to be open for attendance by all students, not just the members of the organization. Also, not all of the Student Activites Fee goes to Allocations for organizations to apply for. When it was implemented, Allocations received less than half of it, with the other remainder going to the programming branch of SGA, the University Program Council, which I was a delegate on during my years at UNA. Since then, they have redistributed it some.

History

The Student Government Association voted in April 2007 to implement the Student Allocation Funding process to respond to the needs of the recognized student organizations (RSOs) and enable these groups to develop programming based on the educational mission of the University as outlined in the University Catalog and Student Handbook. The money generated from the student activity fee will be split with 60% allocated to the University Program Council and 40% allocated to the Student Allocation Committee for the 2007-2008 academic year. Beginning October 1, 2007, RSOs were able to apply for funding through the Student Allocation Committee.

As of Fall 2014, SGA changed the distribution of the student activity fee as outlined below.

$2 is allocated to the Game Room
Remainder is split as follows: 44% University Program Council, 44% Student Allocation Funding, 9% Leadership and Volunteerism, 3% Miss UNA Pageant

Source: http://una.orgsync.com/allocation_funding

The site linked also has the breakdown of how funding was distributed to organizations for each academic year that has occurred since the implementation of this program.