Adam Zobel

The Students’ Association approved the annual budget for the University Program Council after a contentious debate Monday night.

Those present debated the amount of fund raising that campus organizations conduct, with the Students’ Association eventually being criticized for its lack of fund raising.

UPC members requested $112,750 for the 2003-2004 academic year, which is a nearly 3- percent increase from this year. The request was eventually approved.

UPC members said they want to bring more “slightly larger” events to campus, and they plan to update some of their computers. They are also concerned about paying for repairs to the Bummobile, the 1912 Model-T which has been in nearly every Hobo Day parade since 1938. It caught fire earlier this year at a downtown rally.

SA Sen. Michael King questioned the UPC advertising policy.

SA Sen. Mike Whitford defended UPC’s strategy.

UPC has a philosopy of not “charging students twice”. UPC events are often free. The organization is funded by student fees.

SA Sen. Emily Hauge said the SA would eventually be funding UPC completely.

A divisive Senate, that features several current and past UPC board members, defeated successive motions to amend UPC’s allocation to $110,000 and $111,750 respectively.

SA Advisor Dr. James Johnson told the Senate that SA should lead by example and actively fund raise if it wants to be critical of non-fund-raising organizations.

In other SA action, the Jackrabbit of the Day Award was presented to SDSU Foundation Board member Bob Miller for his work on the creation of the Jackrabbit Guarantee Scholarship.

Miller said that the SDSU Foundation must raise about $3 million to $4 million four years from now in order to maintain the Jackrabbit Guarantee.

SA President Dan Hansen said he was concerned that the senators had gathered only 900 signatures supporting expansion of the University Student Union. He then challenged the SA to work to reach its goal of 2,500. He also named Josh Lichty Senator of the Week for his efforts in helping with the debates in the past two weeks.

Vice President Ben Solomon reported concerns that Greek organizations were having difficulty posting publicity material in the residence halls. He said he was working to establish a procedure that would allow Greek clubs to advertise in the residence halls and still address the concerns of Residential Life.

In unfinished business, the SA approved a special allocation of $1,600 to the Native American Club for a Native American musical group that will perform on campus Nov.16.

Concerns were raised because the club had not asked for the special allocation sooner and had not conducted enough visible fund raising. The motion was approved after the original $2,000 request was changed to $1,600.

The American Society of Civil Engineers received a special allocation of $1,000 to help host a convention in February.

SA also approved the Political Science Club’s annual $2,000 allocation to help support travel for the Model United Nations program.

The SA also passed the Judging Team Council’s $15,500 budget. The money helps support the travel for agricultural judging teams.