Sitting beside a note card posted on his wall that reads, “With every great project comes… Sitting beside a note card posted on his wall that reads, “With every great project comes great opposition,” Student Government Board President Shady Henien responded last night to student feedback he received regarding SGB’s purchase of 10 fiberglass panther statues.

“I’m really appreciative of all the students who contacted me today with the pros and cons of this project,” Henien said.

“To see that the students care about what is going on with campus, I love that. But I also want students to be on board with this program.”

SGB has already paid $48,000 for the fiberglass panthers and has approved an additional $10,000 for storage and transportation from Calgary, Canada, where a company called Heavy Industries is creating them.

SGB has yet to calculate additional costs of decorating the 6-foot-tall panthers.

The board’s vote, which occurred over the summer, resulted in a 3-3 tie with one abstention, causing Henien to cast a tie-breaking vote in favor of the project.

Henien, who said The Pitt News was “biased” in labeling the $59,000 project as “costly,” said that he opted to not ask the Alumni Association for financial support.

“I threw the idea out to the Alumni Association but I did not ask them for money,” he said. “This is a project that SGB is doing for the university.”

“I believe that if we are creating a tradition, it should come out of our budget.”

The board gave the project the green light despite a negative recommendation from its allocations committee.

“Allocations denied it on the basis that we believed that while it had the potential to be a good idea, the July-to-October timeline wasn’t enough time to prepare something like this,” allocations committee chairman Rhajiv Ratnatunga said.

While Henien conceded that there are neither definitive plans regarding the placement of the statues once they are decorated nor procedures for determining how a winning statue will be selected, he said that the project was not “rushed,” as board member Bianca Gresco previously called it.

Henien called the accusations of rushing “illegitimate,” and he said that other board members could have done more to expedite the process.

“They say that it was rushed when they had this project on their desk for two months,” Henien said.

He also addressed the concerns of some board members who felt they didn’t have enough information on the project when it was time to vote on it.

“Each board member has an e-mail address, each board member has a cell phone and each board member can read. I contacted every single one of them, they all got e-mails, we also had a phone conference two times over the summer, when a lot of people don’t do any work, but the Student Government Board is still working for the students,” Henien said, adding that deciding on this project over the summer was necessary to get the statues here in time.

The statues were supposed to arrive in time for this year’s homecoming festivities, but the project has been delayed and is now slated to launch at Light Up Night in December – “God willing,” Henien said.

Henien remains positive that the statue program will create a lasting custom on campus. “This is a tradition the SGB wants to create to instill pride on campus, which is lacking.”

Dean of Students Kathy Humphrey offered little comment on the statue project. “It’s important to me that the process the students have here works,” she said.

SGB Meeting Notes

SGB broke precedent last night, allocating $2,097 for the Premedical Organization for Minority Students to attend a program to help students select a graduate school to attend.

“We’ve never before provided money for career fairs,” Ratnatunga said.

The vote passed 4-3, with one abstention.

After years of attempts, the SGB received permission from chief of police Tim Delaney to provide pepper spray to students for a cost.

“So many SGBs have been trying to get this in the past, and we’ve always been shot down because this is a safety issue on campus,” Henien said, also commending his board members for attaining this goal.