By Hannah Legacy
Contributing Writer
The Student Government Association has increased the allocated budgets of chartered clubs and organizations for the 2017-18 academic year.
“SGA is able to support many of the clubs and organizations on campus through the Student Activity Fee, a small portion of every student’s cost of attendance,” said Deepak Iyer, the treasurer of SGA. “With enrollment up this year, we were lucky to work [with] more money.”
Clubs and organizations like Bona Buddies, a youth mentoring program, and BonaResponds, a volunteer organization, provide a sense of community and show a willingness to serve. A budget can make or break an organization’s ability to do much of anything.
“As an entity designed to serve the needs of our students, we strive to make many possibilities become realities,” said Iyer. “One way we are able to do this is by increasing SGA allocations.”
With more money, clubs are able to provide more services to the campus community.
“Budgets play a large role in what organizations are able to accomplish,” said Iyer. “By increasing how much SGA is allocating to these organizations, we strongly believe that our clubs will have less of a barrier to make the impact they are striving for.”
Jordan Boland, the co-president of the American Sign Language Club, spoke about the requirements clubs on campus.
“In order for a club to receive a yearly budget, each club must meet a certain amount of community service hours, which is dependent on a club’s budget allocation,” said Boland. “Also, each club must attend a certain amount of SGA meetings every semester and host at least two campus-wide events.”
The ASL Club hosts Deaf-Hearing Socials and Finger-Spelling Events, which fulfill this requirement.
“Each club must hold at least four general meetings each semester and take accurate minutes of those meetings in order to submit to SGA at the end of each semester,” said Boland.
Boland said he feels these requirements are very fair and doable.
On campus there are five clubs, known as “The Big Five,” that receive a significantly larger budget: Campus Activities Board, Medical Emergency Response Team, The Bona Venture, The Buzz and Intramurals.
President of CAB Executive Board, Emily Losito, who is also an associate editor for The Bona Venture, said The Big Five have additional requirements from SGA.
“We have more hours of community service required and a member of our club must attend every SGA meeting throughout the semester,” said Losito. “Every club provides a service to students, but The Big Five have significantly more programming on a weekly basis and therefore require more funding.”
Because of the allocated budgets, the clubs will be able to do more and, maybe, bring St. Bonaventure even closer together.
legacyhe17@bonaventure.edu
