ONLINE EXCLUSIVE BY JESSICA LYNK
UNITY Roundtable approached Senate with initiatives last night that they believe will provide “equitable and fair funding” to the multicultural organizations on campus.
This comes after Senate released budget cuts for the upcoming year. Because enrollment is down, the Student Fee Allocation Committee (SFAC) was tasked with cutting funding for every organization on campus. UNITY Roundtable felt that their funding was unfairly cut.
Drake University aims to have 22 percent of the student body be domestic students of color by 2025, according to the group. In order to accomplish this goal, the group is asking Senate to meet these demands:
“UNITY will become a governing body by the 2017-2018 school year with executive positions.
“UNITY will receive 30% of the money collected from the student activities fee each year.
“A member of Unity Roundtable sits on Student Funds Allocation Committee
“Reinstate procedure where all the budgets for ALL annually funded student organizations are posted prior to Student Senate approval.”
The group gave Senate until April 7, the day of the next senate meeting, to deliberate and respond to their demands.
In order to address these issues, Senate created a work group comprised of Senators Thalia Anguiano, Daniel Creese, Erin Griffin, Kevin Kane, Linley Sanders, Trevor Matusik and SFAC member John Stehwein.
In-depth stories will be published in print on Wednesday and online Thursday night following senate’s weekly meeting.
