The ETSU Student Government Association Senate voted Tuesday to allocate $1,500 apiece to Alpha Delta Pi sorority and Kappa Delta sorority and $1,480 to Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity Incorporated to help fund trips by fraternity and sorority leaders to training conventions.
The BUC Fund committee originally recommended to decline funding for Alpha Delta Pi and Kappa Delta.
“Ultimately, the committee kind of took the approach to try to fund all on-campus applications because it would benefit on campus and then was very reserved about funding off campus,” Sen. Zachary Tuggle said. “It’s kind of hard to show or prove that when we do fund off-campus events that it brings anything back.”
Sen. Brandon Johnson pulled the funding recommendations for Alpha Delta Pi, Kappa Delta and Alpha Phi Alpha to allow for further discussion about their allotted funding.
Johnson said the three BUC Fund applications were similar, and all three organizations should receive funding.
“I believe that this is the same event that Kappa Delta has handed to us before in the past,” Johnson said. “It’s only every two years, and they have come historically every two years for funding for this event. And we have funded them the whole time that I’ve been here and since before I was here.”
The same applied to Alpha Delta Pi, Johnson said. “Alpha Phi Fraternity Incorporated comes it feels like every single BUC Fund session. I know they came last BUC Fund section, and I’m OK with that. I’m not saying it’s a bad thing. They only come for two a year, it feels like more for some reason I don’t know why, though.”
The SGA Senate has historically concluded that sending these people to these conventions helps bring leadership skills back to campus and qualifies as a fundable event, Johnson said. “However the problem that I have is that we zero funded two organizations and funded one organization based on the fact that the committee felt that they were an underrepresented group.”
Johnson said Title V, a clause in the ETSU SGA Constitution that establishes the qualifications for BUC Fund eligibility, said nothing about funding an organization based on their representation on campus.
Sen. Alexis Petrak said Alpha Delta Pi and Kappa Delta already had at least one representative going to the convention while Alpha Phi Alpha could not send anyone without BUC Fund funding.
“I really don’t want to fund off-campus stuff right now with how little money we have,” Petrak said. “I’d rather have programing on campus … while I know it’s first come first serve, off campus obviously doesn’t affect as many students as it would if it was an on campus event.”
Sen. Will Ellis said most of the involvement on campus stems from the work done by Greek organizations.
“This is, in a backhand kind of way, an on campus event,” Ellis said. “If you’re talking about organizations who are going to have the most impact felt, it’s probably going to be Greek.
“It produces leaders, it helps the campus. If you’re holding back your money, which is reasonable considering we’re out, you’re holding it back saying that you’re waiting for something ‘better’ in quotation marks to come up. It’s not really our job to say that.”
The student senate allocated a total of $21,110 to student organizations during the BUC Fund session, leaving $7,170 in the BUC Fund.
