Washington University’s Student Union (SU) Treasury approved 8 appeals from student groups, as well as an appeal from the Social Programming Board (SPB) to have actress Brenda Song speak on campus, March 28.

Trending Topics: Brenda Song 

Members of the Social Programming Board (SPB) presented the first appeal of the meeting, requesting $42,500 for actress Brenda Song to give a talk on campus.

While SPB previously requested the same amount of money for actress Stephanie Hsu to give a talk, Hsu was unable to come because of prior obligations. As a result, the funds allocated for Hsu’s talk will be retrieved, since the money cannot be used for a different speaker than it was requested for. 

At the meeting, SPB was allocated new funding to bring Song to campus from the funds set aside for their Trending Topics speaker series. Song is best known for playing London Tipton on the childhood classic television series “The Suite Life of Zack and Cody,” as well as other appearances on Disney Channel shows and movies. In her adult career, Song has starred in movies and television shows such as “Love Accidentally,” “Dollface,” “Changeland,” and “Secret Obsession.” Members of SPB explained their decision by noting that Song is a good replacement for Hsu because they are the same caliber of speaker and they target the same audience.  

Racing appeal strikes conversation about funding equitably 

Treasury representatives had a discussion about how to allocate funding through the lens of equity while deciding whether to fund an appeal from WashU’s Racing club for a go-karting social event. 

WU Racing made an appeal for $3,750 to bring 50 members to Amp Up Action Park to go-kart. 

After the possibility of funding the group for less expensive ticket packages was brought up, representatives considered potentially not funding the group for a social event at all because of the cost of their annual budget, before eventually deciding to fund them. 

Vice President of Finance Max Roitblat brought up the large amount that WU Racing has spent throughout the year as a factor for Treasury representatives to consider.

“The one thing I haven’t heard discussion on that I think deserves discussion is that, I know this group has not put on a social [event] yet this year, but SU has allocated more money to this group than any other,” Roitblat said. “I do think there deserves to be some discussion on whether this group should be funded for a social [event]. We have a social subsidy limit, but that’s not an entitlement for a group to have.”

Treasury representative Hieran Andeberhan said that she believes students should not be penalized for being involved in an activity that inherently requires a larger budget than others. 

“I don’t think members of Racing go into it thinking, ‘This club takes up 5 percent of the budget,’” Andeberhan said. “They go into it because of their passion for engineering, building, and racing. I don’t think that the members should be at fault for the size of the budget and that we should give every student a chance to have their social.”

In response, Treasury representative Leena Rai brought up the issue of equity and referenced how expensive the event is. 

“I think this is an objectively really expensive activity for an objectively incredibly expensive club, so I would be more comfortable subsidizing this,” Rai said. “I don’t think it would be super equitable for us to give $45 per person for this event.” 

Senior Raghed Abdel-Tawab, a representative of WU Racing, pointed out that if Treasury representatives considered the appeal outside of the context of the club’s regular budget, they may come to a different conclusion. 

“At the end of the day, looking at the group, I think it’s very easy to look at this from the perspective of how much money has this group taken?”Abdel-Tawab said. “Instead I would ask all of you to think about this group as a student group and if another student group came in here [with this proposal], would you have the same funding rationale?”

Treasury representative Jason Zhang brought the conversation back to equity, explaining how the body uses equity in their decision making.

“I think as a treasury body, we have been slowly pushing towards an equity mindset,” Zhang said, “That includes looking at overall costs, what other student groups have been doing as well, and therefore I think there is from there at least a rationale for subsidizing.” 

Treasury representative Sam Hogan pointed out that funding WU Racing a certain way for their social event based on their overall budget would create a precedent to follow for other groups. 

“I think it’s a really great sentiment to consider the budget size of the group, but I think the big problem with doing that is once we do it for Racing, next we have to look at the second largest student group and think about subsidizing them as well and then third largest, fourth largest, and so on,” Hogan said. “Once we do that, we start looking at their budget size and start punishing groups for having larger budgets when funding their social [events] and I disagree with that.”

After significant thoughtful discussion, Treasury representatives decided to fund the group for $2,250, which amounts to $45 per person. 

Other appeals 

In addition to WU Racing, Treasury representatives funded seven other appeals for student groups, including social events, travel, and performances. 

WashU Women’s Ultimate was funded for $3,595 in order to attend their regionals tournament, the Outing Club was funded for $1,426.94 to take 16 members on an overnight rafting trip, and WashU Robotics was funded for $4,780 in order to travel to Harvard for a competition. 

Chabad received $2,292 in additional funding to put on their Passover Seder to upgrade the location from Risa Commons to the Athletic Complex due to high interest in attending. 

Ashoka received $2,135 to put on a Bazaar held in Tisch Commons where dance groups will showcase their talent in a celebration of South Asian heritage. Reverb received $1,275 to host their spring concert where they plan on having guest openers such as dance group WU Fuego. Cast n’ Crew received $2,982.84 to cater a social event in Holmes Lounge for theater students after their spring musical.