Funding for Homecoming event up for debate

Ryan M. Melton

The success of one Homecoming event at Iowa State may rest on a decision made by the Government of the Student Body senate at its meeting Wednesday.

A senate bill will be presented asking GSB to provide $2,000 to the Homecoming Committee to help fund Cy’s 50th Birthday Kickoff, a semi-formal terrace party in the Memorial Union that will be held Oct. 1 in place of the Fall Gala. Speaker of the Senate Henry Alliger, who authored the bill, said the Fall Gala was a more formal affair that was held near the end of Homecoming activities.

Alliger said GSB has traditionally played a major role in helping to fund and plan the Fall Gala. However, he said confusion about funding for this year’s Homecoming event arose because of miscommunication between GSB and the committee.

“It wasn’t in their budget because they thought it was in ours, and it wasn’t in our budget because we thought it was in theirs, and that’s where the conundrum came about,” Alliger said.

Alliger said, to the best of his knowledge, GSB decided last year to stop planning and funding the Fall Gala because it felt the Homecoming Committee was already available to carry out many of the duties GSB was performing. The committee, he said, received a different message. He said committee members believed GSB would stop planning the event but would still agree to fund it.

Director of Student Affairs Shawn Eagleburger, who has been working with the Homecoming Committee on resolving the situation, said the miscommunication happened because the message was lost during the turnover in GSB and Homecoming Committee positions.

Eagleburger said he has been involved in a partnership with the Homecoming Committee, but with a different role from past directors of student affairs, who have traditionally worked on significant parts of the Fall Gala planning for Homecoming.

Alliger said when the committee thought GSB would no longer be the Fall Gala planners, it decided to scrap the gala for Cy’s 50th Birthday Kickoff. The committee had progressed to such an extent in the planning of the kick-off before it found GSB did not budget the event, that he believed it would be wrong to nullify all the committee’s work by not funding it.

Homecoming Committee General Co-Chairwoman Erin McKeown said the event probably will not happen if the GSB senate decides not to fund it. She said the event may receive some funding from the Inter-Residence Hall Association, the Collegiate Panhellenic Council and the Interfraternity Council, but it is mostly dependent upon GSB funds.

“Funding we’re interested in from GSB will go to refreshments and food, live entertainment and decorations, so if we don’t get funding from GSB, we will have less of these, if any at all,” she said.

Two other bills will be discussed during the meeting. One will seek over $4,000 in funding for the purchase of ice climbing equipment for the Iowa State Mountaineering Club. The other bill will seek funding for the New Voters Project, which would allow them to print more voter registration forms so they can reach their voter registration goals.

The meeting will be held at 7 p.m. Wednesday in the Lynn Fuhrer Lodge in the Lab of Mechanics Building.