Letter to the Editor

Narissa Handler, of the allocations committee of the Student Government Board, defends denying… Narissa Handler, of the allocations committee of the Student Government Board, defends denying the men’s club lacrosse team funding to go to its playoffs. I can’t be alone in scratching my head at the sheer incompetence of this. I challenge her and her SGB buddies to convince any sane person that it is right to deny the lacrosse players $2,861 on the one hand and sock away more than $40,000 in summer activities fees on the other, supposedly because no one has requested it.

The truth, as Handler admits, is that the lacrosse players were perhaps too busy actually doing something to develop the intimate acquaintance with inane rules and regulations that prying any money out of the iron fist of the allocations committee requires.

In 2005, SGB approved money to send themselves to a leadership conference (which, to be fair, they no doubt desperately needed) and another $9,000 for themselves to hold an invitation-only Red Carpet Event. This year, they managed to scrape together $60,000 to pay for 10 fiberglass panthers. So, you can’t say they’re completely ineffectual.

Rhajiv Ratnatunga, a former allocations committee member, said in a recent Pitt News article that the student activities fee is “one of those standard fees you just have to pay,” as if students have no right to demand that once they’ve paid it, something useful actually be done with it. I think most students would join me in calling on the allocations committee to use the fee to encourage student activities rather than using the committee’s control over the purse strings to get in the way of student activities coming off successfully.

Vanessa Wills School of Arts and Sciences