Howard: Shull’s start laudably transparent

This year’s Student Government Board is comprised of nine talented student leaders whose… This year’s Student Government Board is comprised of nine talented student leaders whose individual initiatives could make this university a better place.

For instance, Board member Zack Bombatch wants to see every Pitt shuttle stop physically marked similar to the way that current Port Authority routes are marked. Bombatch said that his role is to talk to the city and the University and bring them together to discuss the proposition.

Another promising initiative is Phil LaRue’s plan to create an “online sustainability resource” that tells students when and where to recycle both on campus and in student-heavy neighborhoods like Shadyside and North Oakland.

These are both projects that have the potential to benefit students, and they are complemented by SGB’s overall goals for the year that include making Pitt a more environmentally friendly campus and increasing student participation in SGB.

Regrettably, these laudable broad initiatives were overshadowed by the fact that they were drafted at a two-day SGB retreat last weekend held at an undisclosed location and paid for with funds from the Student Activities Fee that SGB allocated itself.

Newly inaugurated Board President Charlie Shull first discussed the retreat in comments published in Thursday’s Pitt News when he said that the Board would have specific plans for the year to share with students after a weekend retreat at an undisclosed location.

Reading about an undisclosed retreat taken by SGB, I immediately envisioned SGB members taking a weekend vacation to Nemacolin Woodlands, relaxing poolside on the students’ dime. Worse still, Shull refused to say where the retreat occurred when I first interviewed him on Monday, and that the lack of disclosure was in keeping with SGB tradition.

Moreover, Shull said that the retreat was paid for with funds from the Student Activities Fee and that these funds were allocated by SGB itself.

After talking to Shull, the situation looked worse than I had imagined: SGB paid for the retreat with student funds, SGB allocated the funds itself in a process with little outside oversight, and it looked as if SGB had something to hide.

Shull outlined some auspicious plans for the next year including greater student interaction with City Council and the inclusion of ethics guidelines in SGB’s bylaws, but none of his ideas mattered if he started his term by spending student money without telling students what was done with it.

But hours after I interviewed him, Shull surprised me. He called me back and said that, after reflecting on the issue, he recognized that students did have a right to know where their money was being spent.

Shull said that the location of the retreat was a three-room cabin at Hidden Valley — a mid-level ski resort about an hour east of Pittsburgh. The board members spent the retreat working on the year’s agenda and getting to know each other better, Shull said.

Shull said that the cabin cost about $800 a night and expenses for the entire retreat were capped at $2,000 — that’s $222 per board member for the weekend.

After giving me the details on the retreat, Shull said, “It’s important to start transparency from day one” and I couldn’t agree more. Indeed, although it’s possible to disagree with the retreat or with spending student money on it, it’s important to recognize that Shull set a new tone for this year when he chose to disclose the location and cost of the retreat.

It was a recognition that students deserve to know where their money is being spent and hopefully, it foreshadows further steps to increase SGB’s transparency. After all, if students do have the right to know where and how their money is being spent, they also have a right to know what occurs during Allocations Committee meetings when decisions are made to approve or deny allocations requests from student groups.

Of course, greater transparency not only benefits students, it benefits the SGB members whose individual projects promise to improve student life on this campus. Issues of transparency are too often a distraction from the work of SGB and often focus public attention on things like undisclosed retreats rather than positive projects like LaRue’s online sustainability resource and Bombatch’s shuttle marking initiative.

I’m not giving Shull or SGB a pass for the year, but I do think it’s important to give them credit for correcting a mistake and making one element of SGB more transparent rather than less. I look forward to writing more about how the above board member projects progress and less about scandals of undisclosed expenses.

Continue the conversation at Giles’s blog, www.gilesbhoward.com/blog/, or e-mail Giles at gbh4@pitt.edu.