Members of two student groups seeking funding from the Government of the Student Body went home happy Wednesday night when their requests were granted.

Among the groups seeking funding for conferences were the National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE) and the American Society of Landscaping Artists (ASLA). GSB has a $2,500 budget to fund groups for conferences, and the senate allocated $1,750 to the two groups.

Marcia Johnson, off campus, wrote the bill asking for funding for the NSBE conference, and she said funding conferences is beneficial to Iowa State.

“I think conferences serve a large purpose for students, because it’s a way for students to go off campus and gain perspective about issues that we may not have to deal with at Iowa State but have to be dealt with at other campuses. That’s a service that they bring back to Iowa State,” Johnson said.

“Particularly with NSBE, they are going for the purpose of bringing a conference to Iowa State,” she said. “They are hoping to bring about 500 new students to Iowa State, so that’s 500 students who are coming to Iowa State for students to meet and learn from.

“So I would like to see them get enough money to be able to do that,” she said.

A new bill concerning the GSB budget and conference funding for student groups also was introduced at the meeting.

The bill seeks to raise the budget for conferences from $2,500 to $5,000. Johnson said this bill is important as well.

“I’m in favor of it, but I’m not sure that $5,000 should be the cap,” Johnson said. “We need to leave as much money as possible on campus because it’s the students’ money.

“It’s important to fund programs on campus, but on the other hand, if students feel they want to spend their money on conferences, it’s not really our place to say they can’t,” she said.

Mike Pogge, LAS, said he also is in favor of the bill, which will be discussed more at next week’s meeting.

“I think that the senators are realizing that the student groups are starting to go to conferences, and that it is a part of the educational process,” Pogge said. “I think they are beginning to realize that $2,500 is not enough.”

Another bill introduced at the meeting, emphasized GSB’s opposition to the Iowa State Board of Regents proposed tuition increase.

The bill requests an allocation of $1,000 from GSB to help GSB President Bryan Burkhardt with the costs of lobbying against the tuition increase.

Johnson said she could see why people might think this a futile effort, but she said it is the effort that counts.

“Unless you try to fight it, you are definitely going to see a 5.2 percent increase,” she said. “I guess it’s the idea of at least trying.”

In other news, GSB:

• Approved off-campus senator Joseph Brus’ resignation after he received an internship to work at IBM this semester.

• Passed a bill limiting time allotted for debate over new bills to five minutes.

• Agreed to continue discussion and vote next week on a bill requesting funding for a wind blade for the ISU Skydiving Club.

• Passed a bill to help fund TogetherFest, an alcohol-free, admission-free concert for students to be held during Homecoming week.