The fate of one campus publication will be decided by the Government of the Student Body Senate tonight.

The Senate will vote to determine how much, if any, funding The Drummer, a student newspaper on campus, will receive through the GSB funding process.

At last week’s GSB meeting, The Drummer was the only group out of nearly 200 student organizations that the Senate sent back to the finance committee — the committee that recommends funding for all the student organizations — with a request to lower the recommended amount of about $10,700.

But despite the Senate’s request, the committee decided not to recommend decreasing The Drummer’s budget Tuesday night, placing the final decision back in the Senate’s hands.

Finance Director Steve Elliott said the Senate will have two choices tonight — it can either accept the committee’s recommendation or vote to zero-fund the organization. It cannot however, vote to have the budget increased or decreased again, Elliott said.

“The Finance Committee discussed the request by the Senate and we decided to send back the recommendation based on our criteria,” Elliott said, which is the printing costs for the newspaper and not the content.

The Senate voted last week to decrease funding for The Drummer because of the newspaper’s “lack of readership and student awareness of it,” said LAS Sen. Scott Milburn.

Lucas Rockwell, production manager for The Drummer, said he was very disappointed with the Senate’s request to lower the amount of funding. “I’m not surprised based on things that come out of the Senate,” Rockwell said.

Mark Ingles, productions worker, said The Drummer covers investigative stories that are not found in the mainstream press and is therefore a valuable resource for the ISU campus. He described the publication as “an alternative style of news.”

The Drummer, which published 10 issues last fiscal year and four issues last semester, has covered such topics as sexual assault and the greek system, higher education at ISU and the Memorial Union renovations.

The Drummer is currently being nominated for a national award from the Center for Campus Organizations in Boston and yesterday it was officially recognized by the Iowa Senate for five years of excellence in investigative reporting.

Johnie Hammond, state senator, said she awarded The Drummer a certificate of recognition because she likes to honor academic achievement and believes The Drummer fills that role.

“The Drummer represents an alternative voice for the students and faculty of Iowa State, so I was one of four who gave it recognition,” Hammond said. Others who signed the certificate were Senate Majority Leader, Senate Minority Leader and the President of the Senate.

She said she has very rarely given out this awards and felt like many of the groups and organizations that are recognized by the Senate are sports related and not academic oriented.