Despite concern with the group’s continued debt, Student Union voted in favor of funding WU-SLam to bring three nationally noted poets to campus this fall.

They also voted in favor of funding a bone marrow registration drive and transportation to see speaker Kal Penn at their weekly meeting Tuesday night.

SU Treasury unanimously approved allocating $4,500 to bring professional slam poets Storm Thomas, Michael Lee and Sam Cook to campus—Thomas in November, Lee and Cook together in December.

Members of the student slam poetry group used their personal relationships with the poets to negotiate lower rates so that two headliner poets could make an appearance on the same day.

“I think that for how many people are going to see them, the price is very cheap,” junior and treasury representative Greg Porter said.

WU-SLam intends to offer free admission to both performances.

The funding decision came as a surprise to some due to WU-SLam’s several-thousand dollar debt to Student Union.

Budget Committee co-chair, junior Michael Cohen, said that WU-SLam’s debt was not a major factor in the decision to approve funding, as rejecting funding wouldn’t be a viable solution to the issue.

“As for the debt, I don’t think that lowering this group’s profile will help them out,” Cohen said.

WU-SLam members said the group is working with Student Union to pay down the debt at around $500 a semester with merchandise sales and off-campus paid performances.

In addition, in a 17-1 decision, Treasury approved funding for a bone marrow registration drive, a new initiative on Washington University’s campus.

“The Wash. U. marrow registry is a bit of an original idea,” said sophomore Maggie Gardner, treasurer of WU Marrow Registry. “I don’t think there are many other schools that have it.”

Talking points against funding the registration drives included the substantial fundraising account the group already has, as well as concerns that allocated funds might not directly benefit undergraduates, since previous drives included a location at the Law School.

Treasury also approved funding to bus students to Kal Penn’s off-campus speaking engagement, sponsored by Ashoka, and for transportation to off-campus improv shows sponsored by the University’s three improv comedy groups.

Ammar Karimjee, Student Union’s vice president of finance, also presented a proposal to move general budget proposals to earlier in the spring, transferring this responsibility from the incoming to the outgoing Vice President of Finance, pending approval by the current Senate and Treasury.

Some members echoed Karimjee’s rationale that the move would give student groups more time to execute their programming by allocating funding earlier, but others expressed new concerns that the budgets would be set and funding approved by outgoing Student Union seniors that have “checked out” and put less care into decision-making.

No constitutional change is required to move budget proposals to earlier in the semester. However, an informal straw poll to gauge support concluded in a 14-3 vote in favor of the new budget schedule, with one undecided member.