RUSA board discusses budget, climate change, commencement speaker

BUDGET ALLOCATION

The 2014 to 2015 budget for student organizations was passed at last night’s Rutgers University Student Assembly meeting.

Rachel Moon, allocations chair for RUSA, said the RUSA Allocations Board is the part of RUSA that distributes student fees to the estimated 400 students organizations on campus.

She said the most money that the board has allocated in one year was about $1.5 million, with the annual budget usually being somewhere between $1 million and $1.5 million.

When Moon, a School of Arts and Sciences junior, got involved with RUSA allocations a few years ago, she said there were about 350 student organizations to allocate money to. The fact that the number has gone up to 400 shows that students have taken the initiative to start their own clubs.

Students involved in organizations on campus are supposed to draft their budget with the president, treasurer and faculty advisor of their organization.

They are asked to apply for up to four programs, and RUSA Allocations Board guarantees giving the organization money for up to two programs.

If an organization’s members feel they have not received enough funding for their events, student representatives can attend an appeals meeting — held weekly throughout the semester — to explain what the program is, how it correlates to the mission of their organization and why they need more money.

Organizations also receive overhead funding, which Moon said they can use for general necessities like advertising, meetings, pens, website maintenance fees and storage fees.

Moon, along with the team of 10 Allocations Board members, have to stay neutral in deciding on how to allocate money to different student organizations. They do not fund programs based on how good they think the program will be or if they agree with the mission of the organization.

Instead, the committee looks at the size of the program and where and when it is going to be held.

FOSSIL FUEL DIVESTMENT

After the budget was passed, Shane Patel, a School of Engineering junior, presented a resolution for RUSA to favor the divestment of the Rutgers endowment from the 200 corporations with the largest carbon dioxide reserves that RUSA passed by unanimous consent.

Rutgers has a University endowment, which is a fund comprised of charitable donations to the University, according to the bill. This endowment is invested in a variety of holdings, some of which is indirectly invested in mutual funds.

Patel said 97 percent of climate scientists agree that the global warming trends of the last 100 years are due to human activity.

Everyone and everything will be affected by climate change, he said. It is expected to cause more human suffering than any other factor during our lifetimes.

The fossil fuel industry, through lobbying government officials, has succeeded in making climate change a backburner issue, he said. The industry has a lot of wealth, and therefore, a disproportionate amount of power.

According to the bill authored by School of Arts and Sciences junior Michael Endicott, Rutgers is the state university of New Jersey, and therefore responsible for improving the livelihoods of the state’s citizens.

Rutgers can do this by supporting the divestment, Patel said.

Divestment involves pulling the money from any of the 200 corporations that Rutgers has given money to, and reinvesting it in environmentally friendly industries that will help create a more livable future.

“This is about us having a planet to live on,” he said. “That sounds dramatic and that’s because it is.”

Patel said the bill should have just about no financial impact at Rutgers. It will not help or hurt Rutgers’ endowment portfolio.

He said the bill will help people realize how big of an issue climate change actually is.

“I see it as an opportunity for Rutgers and not a bunch of angry kids demanding something,” Patel said.

COMMMENCEMENT

SPEAKER

Luke Svasti, a School of Arts and Sciences sophomore, presented a resolution he authored to support greater transparency and student involvement in the process of selecting a commencement speaker. RUSA passed the resolution.

The resolution, which did not offer a clear course of action, said a commencement speaker is a highly important role, representative of the graduating class as a whole.

The resolution stated that currently, the process and discussion of selecting a commencement speaker is kept from the public and involves limited student input.

The resolution said the goal of any higher education institute should be to prioritize and respect the wishes of the students.

The point of the resolution is to point out a blatant and obvious problem.

“The resolution sends a message that we are resolved as a body to treat this, acknowledge this as a problem. … Even if we don’t have a solution,” Svasti said.