Hanna Xu | Student Life

The most important issue to address is that Student Union privileges cultural groups over other student groups. This is patently false, as a quick examination of Student Union Treasury allocations reveals. LNYF was only given $2,950 for the fall semester, the African Students Association, $1,672, the Korean International Student Society, $1,350, Jewish Student Union was awarded $7,550 , the Muslim Students Association, $6,057, and the Korean Students Association, $5,054. Although as one critic pointed out, many of these numbers are far higher than other groups will see for years, other groups receive far more.

Desire to promote diversity on campus may be a factor here (although if it is, is that so offensive?), but the greater reason is that Student Union provides larger sums for groups that, through events, invite the participation of the greater student body. EnCouncil, for example, was allocated $13,825 for the fall semester, the vast majority of which went not to insular, engineer-specific events but rather to Vertigo: a massive, University-defining party. Lunar New Year Festival filled Edison Theatre. And if groups do spend a lot of their money on themselves, we must keep in mind that they serve a significant section of the Wash. U. community; there are roughly as many Asians as there are engineers. By contrast, how many people participate in or are affected by the Outing Club ($876) or the Belegarth Medieval Combat Society ($416)?

To criticize Lunar New Year Festival’s spending suggests something more than a disagreement with how the money was spent. If such were the case, nearly every group on campus could be lambasted. Some groups receive funding from multiple sources, others spend thousands of dollars on food. Others are allocated thousands of dollars to make money which does not go to covering expenses. I do not take issue with groups that do this, but to focus specifically on Lunar New Year Festival, particularly when attacks are given phrases like “It’s a show by Asians for Asians,” one wonders about the objectivity of its detractors.

Ultimately, though, $5,500 is a paltry amount. Student Union’s total revenues for this year came to $2,484,907.43, and even that is a pittance compared to Wash. U.’s endowment. To take issue with the allocation of .22 percent of SU’s budget is ridiculous. It is more fair to use the financing of Lunar New Year Festival to point out a greater misuse of Treasury funds, but even that alleged misuse—that Student Union favors cultural groups—is imagined. Student Union gives money to student groups based on how many students will be affected by them. EnCouncil and Architecture School Council received $13,825—mainly for Vertigo—and $29,295— mainly for Bauhaus—respectively. Lunar New Year Festival received significantly less for an event that was, proportionately smaller. To attack LNYF or Student Union is unreasonable, and perhaps indicates deeper issues with the presence of cultural groups, rather than any preferences by Student Union.

Her shooting schedule for “Modern Family” conflicted with her ability to visit.

Student Union approved the Association of Latin American Students’ (ALAS) appeal to bring Vergara to campus to speak at one of the group’s 20th anniversary events, but according to Speaker of the Treasury Julian Nicks, no contract was ever drawn up to bring Vergara to campus.

Student Union Treasury allocated $32,251 for Vergara’s appearance on Sept. 21.

“Sofia Vergara’s contracts never came in…a lot of her coming was contingent on whether they were filming for ‘Modern Family.’ So they ended up filming this spring so she couldn’t come,” Nicks said.

He learned on Thursday that Vergara would not be coming to campus.

Edward Poyo, president of ALAS, says the group was looking forward to bringing a popular public figure for its 20th anniversary.

“All of ALAS is very disappointed; I think she would have been a very good speaker. From ALAS’ perspective, it would have attracted a lot of people to our event,” Poyo said.

According to Nicks, the money that was set aside to fund her visit has been put back into the Treasury appeals account, which now stands at a bit more than $150,000.

Earlier this year, the College Democrats’ attempt bring former Vice President Al Gore to campus failed as well, after SU allocated $92,350 for the event. Gore was unable to come due to scheduling difficulties.

Nicks says that the multiple speaker cancellations are unusual but may be due to the particularly high-profile speakers SU funded this year.

“It has never happened before, but we’ve never funded speakers of this size before. This initiative to bring big speakers is new, so we’ve never seen problems like this,” Nicks said.

Last year, Harry Belafonte and Richard Gephardt also cancelled their speaking engagements on campus. Gephardt was not funded by SU.

“Of course it’s sad—[Vergara] was one of the ones that Treasury and the student body was really excited to see come to campus, but these kind of things happen on other campuses all the time. It happens, and hopefully we try to change the structure to make it less common in the future,” Nicks said.

Treasury funded two other major speakers for this year: Amy Chua and John Legend. They are booked to come to campus later this semester.

According to Poyo, ALAS may organize another event to replace Vergara’s appearance.

“We’ve been brainstorming and trying to figure something out, but with time constraints it is going to be pretty hard to get anything in. I would like to bring someone else in or replace the event with something else,” he said.

The ring is part of an effort to convince President Barack Obama to stop the proposal. Because it crosses national borders, the president is in a unique position to discontinue the pipeline.

We believe that these 35 students have the right idea. They have formed their opinions on the proposal, decided to protest its creation and have travelled 18 hours to our nation’s capital in order to make those opinions known. They were only given $600 in funding by Student Union, getting the remainder of the money from other willing student groups.

They’ve also got the right idea about the pipeline itself. While we recognize just how desperate the country is for jobs and how much people are hurting right now, we think that the pipeline is not the way to create those jobs, and the potential benefits to the economy do not outweigh the dangers of the pipeline.

The pipeline is going to cross the entire Midwest. If there is a leak, it has the potential to contaminate huge swaths of land and millions of gallons of groundwater that form the basis for the Midwest’s farming economy.

This is not something that can simply be shrugged off. This pipeline is in everyone’s backyard.

Most of the pipeline will be underground, but that doesn’t mean it’s safe. There was just a 5.8 magnitude earthquake in Okla. this past weekend, and a pipeline in Yellowstone ruptured last July, spilling 1,000 barrels of oil.

There is obviously danger in any form of energy creation, but as the Deepwater Horizon spill made clear, even if the technology is available to make sure that a spill is immediately cut off, it does not mean that everything is under control or completely fixed.

There is no guarantee that TransCanada (the creator of the pipeline) will cut no corners, and there is no guarantee that the U.S. government can adequately regulate this long of a pipeline, especially with its previous failures at containing oil spills. The risks do not outweigh the benefits.

We are incredibly impressed that there are students at Wash. U. who are willing to travel that far just to protest an oil pipeline. Their dedication to their beliefs should be admired and replicated in the wider student body.

Even if the pipeline goes through, these efforts will not necessarily have been for naught. They might inspire better regulation of the pipeline or greater protests the next time a large oil-related project comes up for debate.

No matter what happens to the pipeline, these students are doing the right thing. They are protesting a potentially dangerous pipeline and standing up for their beliefs. They should be commended and encouraged, and we should all try to learn from the example of their activism, and, next time around, maybe go with them.

• Julian Nicks
• Kirsten Miller
• Jacob Trunsky
• Daniel Bernard
• Greg Porter
• Maia Lamdany
• Lisa Ann Gosine
• Michael Cohen
• Nick Palermo
• Stephanie Wang

And the following were voted into SU Senate:

• Neel Desai
• Kai Zhang
• Michelle Winner
• Matt Re
• Michael Byrne
• Willy Chotzen-Freund
• Madhana Pandian
• Anne Sun
• Martin Lockman
• Jenny Wu
• Erich Yaeger
• Bobby Nichols
• Shane Carr
• Michael Tarazi

More than 1,700 students voted in this semester’s Student Union elections, which were among the most contested in recent years.

The turnout, about 26.7 percent of the undergraduate community, continues an upward trend from previous years; around 1,400 students voted in last fall’s SU elections, and only around 600 voted in fall 2009.

Polls were open from 8 a.m. Tuesday to 5 p.m. Wednesday. Results were announced Wednesday evening.

“This is the highest voter turnout in SU fall election recent history,” Election Commissioner and junior Sarah Rubin said.

Rubin and Vice President of Administration Mamatha Challa, a junior, said that the heightened interest was largely a result of candidates getting student groups and social networks involved.

Challa said that the increased competition for the spots effectively translated into greater voter participation.

“If you are able to recruit a lot of people to run, that will ultimately get you a higher voter turnout because people feel they are more legitimate,” she said. “It was interesting to see…how students voted when they actually had a choice in who was representing them.”

In addition to a large quantity of votes, many of the races were close. The elections resulted in freshmen taking numerous Senate and Treasury seats to and the passing all three proposed constitutional amendments—including a proposal to shrink SU Senate.

Freshman Shane Carr in the School of Engineering & Applied Science won his Senate seat by a single vote, and freshman Stephanie Wang narrowly won her spot on Treasury by two votes.

Two write-in candidates tied for the one art school Senate seat, and after a discussion with both candidates, Rubin gave the seat to freshman Michael Tarazi.

“It says a lot when the next person who would have won lost by one or two votes; every vote does count,” Rubin said.

The three constitutional amendments that passed will remove mentions of the nonexistent Equipment Committee from the SU constitution, reassign the role of overseeing the Diversity Affairs Council to the VP of Administration and shrink SU Senate from 28 to 22 seats over the coming year.

All incumbent Treasury representatives were re-elected, and 10 freshmen were elected overall.

The easiest and most logical way to fix uncompetitive elections is to reduce the number of seats. There’s a good reason why this simple solution has been offered by every vice president of administration since anyone on campus can remember: It’s the natural solution. Mind you, this would not entail rounding up the body and booting individual senators off the island. While that approach would make for considerable (free) entertainment, the actual implementation would be far less dramatic. The number of seats up for reelection would just gradually dwindle.

And there’s an easy way to determine the extent to which Senate should slim down. Why not equalize the body with Treasury? The latter has one representative for every 325 students—bringing Senate to the same standard would result in six fewer seats. The College of Arts & Sciences gives up four, and the engineering and business schools lose one each.

Now, say you’re a BSBA and, out of concern for your school, your gut reaction is to reject this proposal. I ask you to articulate your qualms. Are you afraid that issues pertinent to your school are less likely to be brought up? What if I told you that one of your school’s seats is perennially empty anyway? Besides, Senate rarely arbitrates on school-specific issues. As tempting as it is to categorize students by the school that’s giving them their diplomas, the reality is far more complicated. An economics & strategy and political science double major is very similar to a political science and economics double major. Moreover, participation in extracurricular activities tells you far more about a particular student than does membership in a particular school. Two members of an a cappella group or sports team are far more likely to share something in common than two BSBAs. Ultimately, any possible ills that result from removing one business seat are severely outweighed by the fact that the people who remain are far more likely to be elected in a competitive election and thereby represent the true wishes of the student body.

But perhaps you’re one of the few who question the very premise of Senate. In the past, I have been angrily rebuked just for stating my affiliation with the body—trust me, I’ve heard it all, and usually from people within SU. Yet, any reasonable person will agree that the organization serves a necessary purpose. The richness of campus life that we so enjoy would not be possible were student advocacy and programming the purview of the administration. Students will always be the best advocates for students: the key is merely to determine which students, and moreover to incentivize their doing as well as possible. Reducing the number of Senate seats will bring us closer to accomplishing both of these goals, because on top of the obvious improvements in the representativeness of the body, a senator who is at least somewhat concerned about reelection is far more likely to make sure he has something to show for himself.

I am not alone in pushing for this change. After two weeks of one-on-one meetings with individual senators conducted by myself and Senator Davis, two-thirds of Senate finally passed a constitutional amendment reducing the number of seats. The following week, I presented the amendment to Treasury with Speaker Robinson, and it unanimously passed the amendment. All that’s left is for you, the student body, to affirm this amendment on Nov. 1 and 2. Don’t think of it as a referendum on the current Senate or even as a solution to all of our problems. Think of it as a simple solution to a serious problem—one that will forever hamper Senate’s efficacy unless resolved.

Three constitutional amendments and half the seats in SU Senate and Treasury will be up for a campus-wide online vote. Elections will take place from Tuesday, Nov. 1 at 8 a.m. until Wednesday, Nov. 2 at 5 p.m.

“In comparison to past years, these are the most highly competitive and contested elections we’ve seen,” junior Mamatha Challa, vice president of administration for SU, said. “I think it’s exciting because it gives the student body the opportunity to choose who they want to be in office rather than just confirm people…it actually makes incumbents responsible for their past decisions.”

There are 17 students are running for 10 open Treasury positions, and 20 students running for 14 open Senate seats. Last year, 20 people ran for 19 open Treasury positions, and 14 for 13 Senate seats.

The three constitutional amendments being placed on the ballots include one to remove mentions of a nonexistent equipment committee from the constitution, another to reassign the role of advising to the Diversity Affairs Council to the Vice President of Administration and a third one to decrease Senate size—which will take place over future election cycles.

Challa added that beyond the number of petitions received, she was also pleased with the diversity of students who are running for SU this year.

“I think that we did a really great job this year recruiting a more diverse array of students than we normally do. One thing that I am excited for is having more female candidates for Senate, as well as some non-business school students running for Treasury. We also managed to recruit a high number of freshmen to run,” she said.

Sophomore Greg Porter noted that the increased interest in this year’s elections is pushing candidates to vie more fiercely for their seats.

“I think it will actually make people campaign more and try to get people who aren’t actually their friends [to] vote for them,” Porter said. “People are going to have to try harder and campaign harder…as opposed to just using popularity.”

Candidates have been drawing chalk advertisements across the South 40 and campus, posting flyers around campus, forming Facebook groups and talking to individual constituents.

Freshman Michael Byrne and junior Kai Zhang both dressed in formal attire and walked around the DUC to promote their campaigns for Senate.

Byrne, currently filling an open seat in Senate, said he hopes to use the position to promote school pride.

“I plan to use the coalitions I’ve built in the Senate to work on a range of issues—from fostering school spirit and tradition by emphasizing our alma mater song to improving the admissions process by incorporating student input,” he said.

Zhang, who is running for re-election, said he hopes to continue his projects already under way and start working on new initiatives, including building international recognition for the school.

“I [have] started to work closely with [Vice] Chancellor Baker…who is in charge of the library service. We have achieved and are doing a lot of things together, like [redesigning] the new illumination system of Whispers Café, decreasing of the login time of public computers in [the] library, computer lock projects, etc. We are now working very hard on the reliability of the printing system,” he said. “I can see my effort finally turns into result.”

Challa said that she generally appreciates students with the experience and initiative to take advantage of the positions they are applying for.

“I value candidates who have tangible ideas for improving the quality of life on campus, as well as candidates who have strong connections to the Wash. U. community and are willing to go out of their way to find out what the student body wants,” she said. “I also really value candidates who have experience actually being involved in student groups and a perspective of student life outside of Student Union.”

With additional reporting by Michael Tabb

Amendment 1—Remove the equipment committee

This amendment resolves to remove the equipment committee from SU’s Constitution. While removing a committee would generally seem like a big deal, Student Life recommends voting “yes” for this amendment. Why? Because the equipment committee does not even exist.

The equipment committee came into existence in the spring of 2009, and its purpose was to manage equipment operated by student groups. The committee would take inventory of all equipment the student groups owned, and it would facilitate the sharing of this equipment. However, Student Union found this committee useless, and it is thus now defunct. The Student Group Activities Committee (SGAC) now performs the function of the former equipment committee. The SU constitution should not have language authorizing a committee that no longer exists, and that’s why we support this amendment.

Amendment 2—Change the overseer of the Diversity Affairs Council (DAC)

The goal of this amendment is to officially make the vice president of administration the new advisor of the DAC. The council, since its existence, has officially run under the vice president of programming but has recently been working with the vice president of administration.

The DAC came into existence in response to the Mother’s bar incident two years ago, when several black students on the senior class trip were refused entry to a bar in Chicago, allegedly based on their race.

At the time it seemed appropriate to have the DAC exist under the vice president of programming, because they were tasked with coordinating the programming that resulted from this event.

In the past several years, however, without a huge amount of diversity-based programming, the DAC has become less of a presence on campus, and the group has been working mostly with the vice president of administration.

We support this amendment. We believe that the DAC should be directly under the position it works most directly with, but the group should take this move with a grain of salt. We think the DAC should be a larger campus presence, and it needs to do more as a part of SU, even if it is not focusing on programming.

Amendment 3—Reduce the size of Student Union Senate from 28 seats to 22.

We believe that this amendment deserves a yes vote from every student. Reducing the size of Senate by 6 seats will make the process of becoming a senator much more competitive and results-oriented, rather than allowing it to continue as a simple shoo-in election every term.

People against the amendment believe that fewer senators will result in fewer projects completed—projects, such as Syllabi Central, that have been started by senators. However, we believe this fear is unfounded. Senators do not need their titles to enact change on campus, and if they are voted out, they can still participate in their projects.

The benefits of changing the size of Senate in order to make it more effective and competitive outweigh the potential costs of fewer people involved in the process, so this amendment deserves a yes vote.

• Sean Janda
• Jake Lichtenfeld
• Chantel Miller
• Maia Lamdany
• Ross Passo
• Sara Harris
• Shannon McAllister
• Brett Kopin
• Aron Lurie
• Jacob Trusnky
• Pavithra Anand

No Votes

• Kirsten Miller
• Daniel Bernard
• Michael Cohen
• Jeff Lin
• Greg Porter
• Greg Jones

Legislation intended to prevent a repeat of last year’s Bristol Palin fiasco failed to pass Student Union Treasury by one vote on Tuesday.

The constitutional amendment would have made student referendums faster and more effective.

The final vote was 11-6, but it needed a two-thirds margin to pass.

Student Union found itself in a bind in January when Treasury approved funding for bringing Bristol Palin to speak during Sexual Responsibility Week. Students were outraged and SU was unable to reverse the decision because by the time the referendum could be held, the contract would already be signed.

Under the amended constitution, a petition officially filed against a Treasury allocation would freeze funds for 48 hours after the funding decision was made from the time that the chief justice receives notice that a petition is circulating. This would allow students time to obtain signatures from the 5 percent of the student body necessary to reach a referendum vote without a group being able to spend its allocation.

In the current system, referendums cannot be held until at least 10 days after a petition is filed. The amendment would have changed that to two days.

The legislation would also change procedure so funds would continue to be frozen until the referendum would take place.

Sophomore Sean Janda, the budget committee chair, sponsored the amendment. He said that many of the people opposed to the change lost sight of how infrequently referenda arise.

“I think the big thing is referenda aren’t submitted all that often, which means it’s fairly rare that people even have cause to examine the procedures,” he said. “But since there was one that was attempted last spring, it’s given us an occasion to look at the procedures and realize they don’t make sense the way they are right now.”

Senior Kirsten Miller voted against the amendment, mentioning that many group appeals are already happening on a very tight timeframe.

“I’ve been a member of a group that had, the next day, been in the SU office filling out expense requests because we needed to get hooked up the next day. It’s not necessarily the fault of the student group treasurer,” Miller said. “You [are sometimes] pushed back on the docket until just a couple of weeks before your event.”

Other members noted that a reactive response to the Brisol Palin decision last January was not something that the group should pursue.

“I know for Bristol Palin, right after it came out…at the time I was really upset about it and looking back on it today, I think it actually would have been not necessarily a bad thing,” sophomore Greg Porter said. “I really see the value in an event that’d get the campus that pissed off and I think that some of the events that you could get the referendums passed, to some extent might even be the best events that we fund.”

One major argument against the change was that it would cause undue harm to student groups hosting controversial events by placing restrictions on their ability to sign contracts in the event of a petition being filed against them.

Janda noted that beyond many of the reasons given, much of the opposition to the change was not in the spirit of his personal view of Treasury.

“I think there are Treasury representatives who believe that the job of Treasury is to make these hard decisions and that there shouldn’t be a legitimate means of recourse by the student body and that, to them, the legitimate means of recourse is the elections,” he said. “However, there are other people on Treasury who believe that the goal of Treasury is to represent the wills and desires of the student body and since treasury’s not going to be able to do that every time, there should be a legitimate means of recourse for the student body.”

Janda said he hopes to bring the amendment before Treasury again next week after talking to group members to try to sway them in favor of the change.

“I don’t think it’s dead, I think it’ll pass at some point. I’d prefer it pass sooner than later, but I do think it will pass,” he said. “If students feel particularly strongly either way about it, I would urge them to get in contact with Student Union…and they can come to Treasury—Simon Hall 113 at 9:30 [p.m.] next Tuesday—to voice their [thoughts].”

A savings account, comprised of funds that were allocated to student groups but were never spent, has accrued to more than $300,000. At the end of each semester, SU re-collects unused funds so they can be used on other programming.

Almost half of the money in this carryforward account is from the past three years alone.

While the money may provide a beneficial safety net, its growth is beginning to hurt student groups struggling to get funding they actually need to operate, said senior Cody Katz, vice president of finance for SU.

“This money isn’t being spent when other groups can use it,” Katz said. “One thing is just looking closely at who these groups are who aren’t spending all their money…is it a fluke or is it happening again?”

Katz said that part of his job as vice president of finance involves examining the groups who fail to allocate large portions of their budgets.

Among the major offenders from 2010 to 2011 were Sports Club Board, ArtSci Council and Architecture School Council. Those three allocations alone racked up nearly $40,000 in unused spending.

Katz said that he hopes to drain the carryforward account by up to $60,000 this year to put the savings account back on track. As vice president of finance, he’s responsible for deciding how to allocate the money—though his decision is subject to Treasury’s approval.

He said he plans to wait until the end of the semester to decide how to spend the excess funds—whether to transfer them into Treasury’s appeals account, offer student groups increased budgets or personally plan an event to see the money put to use.

This year, some carryforward funding was used to fund student use of the Athletic Complex’s McWilliams Fitness Center. In past years, the money had been used to sponsor programs such as Sleeve A Message beverage sleeve advertising, purchasing new computers for student groups and increasing student group budgets.

“Right now I want to wait and see where Treasury is at the end of the semester,” Katz said. “I have no specific plans right now; if something comes along that we could use it for, that’s something to look into.”

Student group leaders voiced discontent that their speaker appeals were rejected to save money when there are additional funds available.

“Because the quality of the speakers presented was so high, I would hope that if SU had enough money in their carry forward to bring another speaker to campus, they would,” senior Harish Chamarthy, co-president of Ashoka, said. “Had they had more money, I think they would have been more receptive to funding our speakers and other speakers.”

Ashoka’s appeal for $50,000 to bring Dr. Sanjay Gupta to campus was rejected at Treasury’s meeting last Tuesday.

Katz acknowledged that while including carryforward in the speaker appeal process may have had some impact, he disagreed with the notion that it would have made a significant difference.

“I don’t think Treasury kept in mind—oh, we could have more money. I think they were fueled by their passion to bring certain speakers over other ones,” Katz said. “I think the Treasury body for the most part didn’t have any specific numbers in mind.”

Speaker of the Treasury, junior Julian Nicks spoke in favor of Katz’s choice not to give Treasury carryforward funding before speaker appeals. This way, he said, carryforward may act as a safety net in case Treasury runs out of money—not just be spent on another speaker.

“I personally value the fact that carryforward was not put into the account before [funding the] SU speaker series,” Nicks said. “We have received appeals that have almost added up to the amount we have left in our account, so that is something to take note of.”

Sophomore Sean Janda, co-chair of Treasury’s budget committee, said that the carryforward funding is a huge benefit considering that SU Treasury spent so much of its appeals account on speakers.

“I think the [appeals] account is a little bit below where some people would ideally have it right now,” Janda said. “I think Treasury funded as much as it did in the past few weeks under the impression that it might be getting some of the carryforward account—it would be a strain if it didn’t.”

Courtesy of MCT Campus

John Legend

The Association of Black Students appealed to bring Legend, the Association of Latin American Students appealed for Vargara and Lunar New Year Festival appealed for Chua.

Appeals for Sanjay Gupta, Garry Kasparov, Ashley Judd, Djimon Hounsou, Chris Gardner, Patch Adams and Bill McKibben were not funded.

Treasury representatives deliberated until close to 3 a.m. and members of the different groups waited until then for the final decisions. Emotions ran high as student groups stayed to voice support for their own appeals and other speakers they also hoped to see funded.

Treasury’s initial strategy to choose speakers was to divide the speakers into packages. Treasury members nominated over 30 packages consisting of different combinations of speakers.

Several rounds of voting were conducted to shorten the list, but Treasury members still struggled to reach a consensus even after narrowing the docket to two packages.

Attempts were made very late in the process to add new speakers to existing packages or to add entirely new packages. Ultimately, Treasury decided to vote separately on Legend and Kasparov, both speakers with price tags of over $50,000.

Treasury voted unanimously to fund the Association of Black Students’ appeal for Legend. The Washington University Chess Club’s appeal to bring Kasparov was rejected by a vote of 8 in favor, 9 against.

“I think chess still carries a stigma even at the university level,” junior Jacob Zax, president of the University’s Chess Club, said. “I think it would’ve been good for Student Union to have a speaker like this…and it’s too bad it didn’t happen.”

Ashoka’s request for $50,000 to bring Gupta to campus was rejected in the first round of voting. Members of the student group felt that Gupta’s similarity to Dr. Joia Mukherjee—who was funded last week—hurt their cause.

“It’s almost a pick of the draw whether the small speakers go first or the big speakers go first; we just never got a say. We think Sanjay Gupta would have brought something different to the table and have a lot more name recognition,” Ajay Kanakamedala, Ashoka’s treasurer, said.

The appeals for Vergara and Chua both made it through on individual votes. LNYF’s appeal for Chua had been eliminated earlier in the package system but found new life when considered separately.

“I think the whole system with packaging made things really complicated. I almost left because I thought she was out,” Rina Matsumoto, co-executive director of LNYF, said. “Amy Chua addresses a lot of issues not covered by the other speakers. She is a superstar because of her issues, not because of her name.”

Beyond the few procedural complaints, some students said they appreciated the support they received from students outside their organizations.

“The solidarity of other groups who maybe didn’t receive what they wanted—and being mature and standing up for others who they believed deserved the chance—was impressive,” Zachary Romo, outreach chair for ALAS, said.

Dates for most of the speakers have yet to be set.

SU Treasury allocated funding for Al Gore, Daphne Kwok, Mukherjee, Deanne Bell and Jess Weiner last week.