2008 Woodie Awards
Post-mortem on SAFC annual allocation process: still broken
Mark White
Issue date: 4/21/05 Section: Opinion
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The system, as it stands, works fairly well for the regular meetings throughout the year, but the daunting and important task of allotting the amounts for the annual budget have the largest effect on student life. Students are not properly served within the structure of these all day discussions for a number of reasons.
Chief among the problems is the open public forum which takes place at the head of the entire meeting. All allotments are scheduled to be decided on one day and those who want their input heard on issues being decided are expected to say their piece at 9:00 a.m. and wait for the outcome no matter how late it may come. This is a problem for a couple of reasons.
First, the students must have their say, their whole say, when they address the committee. Students who get involved prepare well, they ply the SAFC with all of the data and information that they have compiled that come to bear regarding the issue at hand. When the committee, who dutifully take careful notes of student positions, begin discussion of the topic there may be a misunderstanding over stated positions, or some new questions may arise, which would be better served if concerned students could offer more input. They can't.
After the open public forum, non-committee members in attendance can only be heard if a member calls upon them to answer a question. I have attended these meetings and had relevant information which could have ended a discussion on a point of confusion but I couldn't offer my information. Instead, I had to sit back and listen to the committee go around and around on a point that could have been clarified by a raise of my hand and the sharing of a point of information.
It seems to me that the committee, who always express concerns that more students aren't getting involved, should work to alter this element, at least during the long annual allocation meetings. If things stay as they are, there will always be frustration for the students who care enough to get involved but can't correct misinformation that comes to the table during committee discussion.
The other aspect of this issue is the all encompassing open public forum coming at the beginning of the meeting. Again, for a meeting where everything will be discussed within an hour or so, this may suffice.
But, when you speak to the committee at 9:00 a.m. and they don't get around to discussing it for six or eight, sometimes very stressful, hours they can't be expected to look on the student input with the same fresh eyes that they did for the topics which were discussed first, second, and third.