Posted on April 5, 2007
The most intense debate during Tuesday’s SGA meeting concerned whether or not Siggraph, a club for digital graphic design students, should receive $500 from the SGA’s contingency fund to help the club execute a Field Day to raise money for a local soup kitchen.
The fact that Siggraph is not currently an officially recognized student organization was one cause of concern, because funding it would require overruling the SGA’s constitution.
Siggraph is currently not recognized as an official JMU organization because it does not fulfill the requirements set by Student Organization Services, making it ineligible to receive contingency funds.
President Mike Chunta spoke at the meeting on Siggraph’s behalf, hoping to convince SGA to overrule its constitution in the name of a good cause. It is trying to raise money for The Little Grill soup kitchen, a local restaurant with a history of service to the Harrisonburg community. The $500 Siggraph requested is for laser tag equipment for the Field Day fun raiser.
“Don’t you guys remember Field Day when you were little kids, how fun that was?” Chunta said. “This is our last chance to do it again, at least until we go to our own kids’ Field Days.”
But Sen. TJ VanWagner (Sr.) was not swayed by the appeal, citing the importance of sticking with the established rules of funding, because they are there for a reason, he said.
Sen. Matt Winer (Jr.) was also against granting Siggraph’s request.
“If it was my $500 we were talking about here I’d be willing to take the chance, but I’m less comfortable with risking $500 of someone else’s money,” Winer said.
Other questions about the validity of funding Siggraph, such as who actually receives the money, how the JMU community will benefit and what similar over rulings of the constitution have been made before caused Speaker Stephanie Genco (Sr.) to silence several senators whose arguments she deemed inappropriate.
In the end, the final vote denied Siggraph the $500, but many senators urged Chunta to continue to try to put on the Field Day.
This was the SGA’s last meeting to consider contingency funding. Since the money does not roll over to next semester, the remaining $500 in the account will get absorbed for other areas of SGA’s activity.
Two other student organizations requested contingency money at the meeting besides Siggraph. The Madison Marketing Association received $660 for its annual banquet and Alpha Kappa Delta Phi received $1,500 to bring in Def Jam poet Ishle Park to speak at JMU.
