SGB proposes potential student activity fee increase

Student Government Board proposed a potential increase to the Student Activity fee and announced an Eatery town hall at its meeting on Tuesday in Nordy’s place.

President Sarah Mayer discussed a meeting with the acting dean of students, Lorraine Craven, to consider increasing the student activity fee to accommodate an increasing number of allocations requests. 

All full-time undergraduate students, excluding those in the College of General Studies, pay a $100 student activities fee per semester, which SGB uses to allocate funds to student organizations.

“The student activities fund just can’t bear the weight of every request,” Mayer said. “We’re trying to meet the demand, but we’re already kind of on track to run out of money.”

Board member Andrew Elliott informed a Chabad House on Campus representative that the board will review large allocation requests with “more scrutiny” in response to their request for $6,429.50.

“We have $900,000 to give out every year. It sounds like a lot of money, but there are over 800 clubs at Pitt,” Elliott said. “Continuing to fund these large dollar amounts may become more challenging for us specifically because of the quantity of requests we have.” 

Mayer added that she and Craven discussed expanding SGB’s free legal services. 

“As you all know, SGB offers free legal consultations with a lawyer we have on retainer every Thursday night,” Mayer said. “We’re looking to expand that to include some drop-in hours.”

Board member Evan Levasseur announced a town hall on Oct. 23 at 5:30 p.m. to address ongoing food quality issues in The Eatery which will feature representatives of Chartwells, the company that runs Pitt Eats. 

“We’re going to have a panel featuring Chartwells’ vice president of operations, the marketing director and one of Pitt Eats’ head chefs,” Lavasseur said. “Students can come ask any questions they have about The Eatery and anything related to food at Pitt.”

Elliott added that free meal swipes will be available during the town hall for students without a meal plan who would like to attend and check out the Eatery.

Mayer announced the launch of a campus environment survey aimed at expanding on-campus resources, specifically tailored to address the climate surrounding the election season. 

“We’re hoping to use the survey to fuel whatever resources and programming we come up with in the next few weeks,” SGB Vice President Lauren Rubovitz said. “We know the election season is really hard for students.” 

Board member Mercy Akanmu announced the launch of a survey to gather student opinions about the Anti-Black racism course.

“We’re working on creating a survey for students to talk about their experiences with the anti-Black racism course,” Akanmu said. “If you guys have any opinions at all on that, please let me know.” 

Akanmu has recently discussed an initiative to “greatly improve” the course in collaboration with Ron Idoko, associate director of the Center on Race and Social Problems. 

Mayer, the student representative on the Dean of Students search committee, provided an update on the search.

“We’re still working through the search process,” Mayer said. “We’ve finalized our rubric and questions. This Friday, we’ll be selecting our first draft interview candidates.” 

Mayer added that she attended Chancellor Joan Gabel’s Public Safety Advisory Council meeting. The council advises the University on policing practices, safety policies and community concerns to address safety issues.

“Some of the topics we discussed include free speech throughout the election season, Pitt Police staffing and promotions, the emergency response system and panic buttons,” Mayer said. “We also discussed the number of protests we’ve been seeing. They’ve quoted there to be approximately 40 protests on campus since last fall.”

Mayer also discussed the reintroduction of the civic engagement fellows program, a fellowship that aims to enrich student civic engagement opportunities in Pittsburgh. 

“The application for the program is complete, and hopefully, we will start advertising it by the end of this week,” Mayer said. 

Allocations: 

Global Medical Brigades requested $2,413.92 for storage costs. The board approved this request in full. 

American Institute of Chemical Engineers requested $3,218.69 to attend a conference. The board amended and approved this request to $1,654.75

Men in Nursing Club requested $2,672.97 to attend a conference. The board approved this request in full. 

Chabad House on Campus requested $6,429.50 to hold an event. The board approved this request in full. 

Mayer provided an update on the request by TAAZA Dance Competition, which had been postponed at the Sept. 24 and Oct. 1 public meetings. Over the weekend, the board approved the full request of $24,775.