As University enrollment continues to rise, more student organizations are popping up around campus. But this rise means Student Government Board has to find ways to allocate funds to the new organizations.
“We have this finite amount of money, so we don’t want to run out,” SGB president Sarah Mayer said on allocations this spring.
Due to an increased demand in allocation requests from campus organizations, it is now more difficult for SGB’s Allocations Committee to provide all campus organizations their fair share. To rectify the issue, SGB is planning a full spring audit of expenses from the past five years. The board also plans to continue enacting student wellness initiatives from last fall.
“It’s been a little bit of a challenge for us to kind of work with our system to fairly and equitably distribute that fund,” Mayer said. “Especially considering the sheer kind of volume of requests and how high the dollar amounts have been.”
SGB has a yearly budget of $900,000 collected from the student activity fee, which has remained fixed for multiple academic years. Mayer stressed the importance of this audit and the potential for future budget increases.
“We are looking into that and seeing how we might be able to improve this process to possibly obtain more funds in the future,” Mayer said.
Allocations chair Nicole Zhang said providing adequate funding for an increasing number of organizations has become more difficult.
“Our goal is to distribute the limited amount of funding that we have fairly, which unfortunately means we aren’t able to fund everything. We’re working with a limited pool,” Zhang said.
Board member and First Year Council liaison Maddie McCann-Colvard also plans to work towards equity between SGB and Student Organizations, many of which the board funds.
“[We will] hopefully create a proposal that will make those funds a little bit more accessible and transparent. That’s what I’ve been working on, and hopefully we’ll continue to work on,” McCann-Colvard said.
Mayer said the board is looking into expanding its student access to legal services. SGB currently collaborates with a lawyer to provide legal services to students.
“I’ve been working with several different administrations as well as the Office of Off-Campus Living to see what we can do to expand those services to students,” Mayer said.
SGB aims to increase campus diversity this spring through outreach in local schools.
Board member Mercy Akanmu is working with the University to increase the representation of Black and Latino students on campus. The initiative will also include Pitt Pathfinders and the Pittsburgh public school system.
“The Pittsburgh public school system has a lot of students who are Black and Latino, and we see that there aren’t as many of them coming to Pitt,” Akanmu said. “In the next couple of weeks, we’re going to be sending out SGB board members along with the Pathfinders and having them visit the schools and talk about opportunities.”
Akanmu said they plan to cooperate with diversity, equity and inclusion chair Lauren Lopez to create a spring research conference. The conference will be open to all majors and aim to educate about relevant issues.
“Whether you’re political science or something more STEM-focused, there will be something for you to compete in, as well as engage in informal and formal conversations about different social issues that we are seeing on campus,” Akanmu said.
SGB is working with the Department of Sustainability on a plastics ad hoc committee to reduce campus waste and increase student awareness.
“We’re focusing on mainly single-use plastics, and trying to eliminate those and switch to reusables,” board member Shanthi Bhaskar said.
Bhaskar also plans to continue working with the Ambassadors for Civic Engagement Fellowship to create a civic engagement hub for students and campus organizations.
“It’s going to serve as a civic engagement hub for students on campus and involve the student organizations that have a civic engagement focus,” Bhaskar said. “We can make sure that there aren’t overlapping efforts in our activities and that students are aware that these opportunities exist.”
Board member Evan Levasseur said he plans to continue working with Pitt Eats to address student feedback and maintain health standards at The Eatery. There will be monthly meetings this spring.
“Pitt Eats has been very receptive, but we also do know that students have continued to have complaints,” Levasseur said. “[We are] making sure that students still have a voice in the dining that’s going on campus.”
The board plans to continue its SafeRider checks, which will assess the service’s reliability and ensure safety. Board member Neal Gupta is leading this initiative.
“They are going out and exploring the safe rider system, the technology, seeing how the process actually works, how efficient it is and the challenges with it,” Mayer said.
The First Year Council will continue working with SGB this spring. McCann-Colvard plans to ensure continued communication between the two organizations.
“They [FYC] run their own initiatives that they see as first-years, what interests them or maybe things on campus that they don’t love quite yet,” McCann-Colvard said. “We hope to create a kind of a space for them to learn a little bit about SGB’s different roles.”
SGB will address new initiatives as they are proposed at its weekly meetings this spring.