Treasury funds Armour Magazine, others at weekly meeting

Student Union Treasury voted in favor of funding a printed version of an online campus fashion magazine, a social justice awareness event and a trip to a national chess championship.

The group voted at its weekly meeting Tuesday to grant Armour Magazine $4000, which will enable it to print its student-based fashion magazine that was once available only online.

The magazine was founded last year by seniors Felicia Podberesky, Jacob Lenard and Chantal Strasburger in order to “encourage, connect and cultivate” a culture of style at Washington University. The granted funds will allow the group to produce two issues of the magazine during the semester.

“This is something we could give Washington University that would last, and we would love to see Armour magazine on the racks of Whispers, the engineering school and everywhere on campus,” Lenard said.

The group hopes to expand its readership and make more of an impact on the University by publishing a tangible product. Currently, the group posts every other day on its online blog.

Additionally, Treasury voted to fund $3120 of the $5100 request by the University’s Chess Club to enable its members to attend the 2012 Pan American Intercollegiate Chess Competition in Princeton, N.J.

“It is like the NCAA March Madness of chess. It is highly competitive, and many teams send players to go, like Harvard, Yale, Princeton and Stanford [Universities], and we beat them, and that’s pretty great,” said junior Jason Zhang, the club’s president.

The amount will enable two teams, consisting of nine members total, to attend the chess competition, which will take place from Dec. 27-30.

The asking price would have allowed three teams and 12 total students to attend the event.

An individual appealed to fund an event by a national organization called The Beehive Collective, which raises awareness about social and environmental issues through hand-drawn murals.

A 16-by-10 mural called “True Cost of Coal,” depicting the progression of the environmental effects of coal mining in the Appalachia, will be on campus Nov. 14.

Meanwhile, Cast ‘N’ Crew was not in attendance to make its appeal regarding “The Wizard of Oz.”

Junior Bailey Breems, vice president of programming, also presented the new structure of the SPB at the meeting, which will be implemented next semester.

Instead of three main entities—Team 31, the Gargoyle and Campus Programming Council—the SPB will exist as one cohesive unit consisting of a variety of directors and committees, to be appointed by the Student Union Executive Council on the basis of applications.

Treasury was generally in favor of the restructuring, though the change is already slated to occur.