The Student Government Association (SGA) is in charge of distributing a portion of the student activity fee, made up of the $150 that each student pays each semester. The money is dolled out through funding requests which are traditionally presented by student organizations at funding request meetings.
SGA began this semester with the fall allocation for the student activity fee at $348,332.16. As of Nov. 14, they have about $15,000 left from that allocation.
This semester, SGA has been funding individual student requests, including sophomore Maximillian Armitage’s album debut and the resurfacing of a pool table in the Tigers Den. According to SGA’s Consitution, they have the ability to do this. It states:
“All types of student groups, as well as individual students, can apply for programming funds.”
Though she was not present for the funding of Armitage, sophomore Georgia Roberts, SGA vice president, was in favor of funding the pool table. She was the SGA treasurer at the time of that funding.
“I think [the clause] is a good thing. I can see how [the resurfacing of the pool table] was a valuable thing to be asking for, it’s open to everyone, and [the student] made a really great argument for why the whole Trinity community would use it,” Roberts said.
SGA also funded 20 percent of the amount needed to keep the website Presence running. Presence is the website student organizations use to track attendance at events and meetings.
“The reason that we funded it was because it also has a function that can be used for tracking and funding finances, and so the thought was that we’ll fund part of it and see what we can do with it in the future,” Roberts said.
So far this semester, SGA has approved $20,500 for travel and professional development. This is the largest category of approved spending requests. Other top-funded categories include cultural events and social and fun, which received about $12,600 and about $7,700, respectively.
After funding reimbursements and some January events, the remaining balance is $11,188.89.
“A lot of them are just reimbursements from stuff that we funded earlier in the semester that ended up being slightly more expensive than before,” Roberts said. “And some stuff for January because we don’t have a funding meeting until late January, so if you have an earlier January event, you need to request now.”
This amount will roll over to the spring allocation for the student activity fee.
