Bill may change conference funding
September 26, 2000
The Government of the Student Body has referred a bill to the finance committee that would cut off funding to students who look to GSB for money to go to off-campus conferences and seminars. The bill, which was drawn up by Michael Schaefer, engineering, was proposed due to the high number of students who have requested GSB funding for travel and registration expenses for conferences and seminars. The conferences many times would not have a clear benefit to the student or the university, Schaefer said. “If you look at the GSB meeting minutes from the end of last year up to the beginning of this year, you’ll see that there were quite a number of people coming in for inappropriate funding,” he said. Though this bill was brought up and discussed at the Sept. 20 senate meeting, it will be voted on at the Oct. 4 meeting instead of tonight because it was sent to the finance committee. The committee will review and modify the bill before it goes to the senate floor for discussion, said Steve Medanic, GSB finance director. “It was referred to the finance committee to be put in a form that is more suitable to be presented to the senate,” Medanic said. The bill does provide a clause that will make exceptions for students in special situations. GSB will review cases in which only one qualified person is able to attend a conference or seminar on an individual basis. These people may receive funding to attend off-campus conferences or seminars if they can apply their learning to campus, Schaefer said. “We had to make sure that there was a loophole in the bill,” Schaefer said. “Certain situations are very beneficial to the university, and we need to make exceptions for them.”