Treasury funds CSA $2,000 to bring AngryAsianMan blogger to campus

Student Union Treasury funded all three appeals it heard in a short meeting Tuesday night, including a speaker sponsored by the Chinese Students Association, a pre-medical conference for the Minority Association of Pre-medical Students (MAPS) and a Model United Nations conference.

About $2,000 was set side aside for Phil Yu from AngryAsianMan.com to speak and field questions for approximately two hours. Yu, a Korean-American, started writing the website in 2001, and it has become one of the most widely read blogs on Asian-American life.

“He’s like a one-man news outlet for the entire Asian American community…he focuses not only on events that make the community look good but also anything that matters to the community,” CSA External Vice President and sophomore Chris Lu said.

CSA’s appeal initially included a $500 expense to bring 20-30 students to dinner with Yu, but Treasury rejected the extra funding.

“I really don’t support the dinner…it seems like something we shouldn’t be using the general student activities fee for,” Treasury representative and sophomore Asher Trangle said.

“I support them having the dinner but not us funding it,” Treasury representative and senior Michael Rudolph added.

CSA members also discussed the value of bringing Yu to speak on campus over simply reading up on his free and extensive blog posts.

“The difference between having him come here and the blog is having him speak about his personal experience. On his blog he mostly talks about current events,” Lu said.

Ultimately, Treasury unanimously funded the appeal, with some representatives citing the optimal timing and uniqueness of the community the event reaches.

“As of right now, we don’t have George Takei coming…it’s not in April so it’s another event we could have in March,” Treasury representative and freshman Sam Williams said.

The event is tentatively scheduled to take place from 3-5 p.m. on March 3 in Umrath Lounge, with the status of a possible Bear’s Den private dinner, potentially from 5-7 p.m., contingent on Congress of the South 40 funding.

In a 14-2 decision, Treasury also funded the travel and hotel costs for MAPS’ conference in Louisville, Ky., totaling approximately $2,000. The conference will largely focus on providing interaction with students and admission officers and offer workshops with practice interviews and MCAT preparation.

MAPS president and junior Ishaq Winters emphasized that the conference would benefit the broader Washington University community and not just attendees.

“We have each member take notes at the different workshops they go to,” Winters said. “Hopefully we’ll have an event with all the pre-health organizations to present this information to the student body.”

The primary debate of the meeting concerned whether SU was responsible for funding pre-professional training that could be provided through other sources like the Career Center.

“All [of the resources] are very available at Wash. U. You talk to doctors and med students in Med Prep,” Treasury representative and senior Jacob Walker said.

Senior Ammar Karimjee, SU vice president of Finance, suggested that the conference was clearly tied to the group’s purpose, which was approved by the Student Group Activities Committee at some point in the past.

“When we have a minority association for pre-med students, obviously [SU] at some point decided that pre-professional activities should be included,” Karimjee said.

Treasury also funded a trip to the University of Chicago Model UN conference, granting money to send 28 competitors with additional appeals funding of approximately $5,000. The conference will include many freshman and older Model UN members to mentor the newer members.