Dartmouth's Undergraduate Finance Committee, headed in past years by Dean of Student Life Holly Sateia, will have a new chair this year: Molly Stutzman '02.
Stutzman, who also serves as Student Body President, will preside over this year's meetings of the UFC -- the committee charged with allocating funds to eight major campus organizations, and will be its first-ever student chair.
Although Stutzman was excited about her appointment, which went into effect this fall following discussions with Sateia during Spring term, she emphasized that the nature of the job precluded any sweeping change for the UFC.
"[The UFC] has a very specific charge," Stutzman said. "It's not as though I bring a set of new objectives."
According to Stutzman, past committees have consisted of a representative from each of the eight organizations funded by the UFC -- Student Assembly, the Programming Board, Collis Governing Board, the Class Councils, ORL, COSO, the Office of Student Life and the now-defunct CFSC -- as well as five other student members appointed by Student Assembly.
The committee members convene for several meetings Fall term to appropriate funds for the following year to each of the eight organizations, with each of the representatives, who are typically treasurers, making proposals and detailing plans for how their respective organizations plan to use their funding.
The UFC also meets again in the spring to review its organizational structure and to make any further necessary changes.
In the past, the Programming Board, which "stages the really huge events," according to Stutzman, has received the largest portion of the over $600,000 allocated toward student activities each year, with COSO receiving the next largest amount.
Stutzman's appointment will not affect the basic organization of the committee, but will be more of a sign to students that their own chosen representatives will now have the final say in allocating funds to student organizations.
"It's a very significant change that it's now a student who has been elected by the rest of the student body," Stutzman said.
Sateia agreed that the change had been largely motivated by the student concerns.
"One of the things we heard from students is that they would like to have more control of the financial and physical resources on campus," she said. "I do think [the Student Body President] is the appropriate person for the position, because [that person is] the one who has been voted into office to represent all students."
Stutzman also noted that at some other schools, student governments themselves directly apportion funds for campus organizations.
At Syracuse University, the student government -- known as Student Association -- controls the allocation of funds to all 125 student organizations on campus, according to Association Comptroller Erin Maghran, a sophomore at Syracuse.
She said that a student group, the Finance Board, which essentially serves as a committee of the Student Association, is charged with reporting budget plans to the Association.
"I receive a budget request, the Finance Board hears the request, and makes recommendations to the main assembly," Maghran said. "The assembly votes yes or no, and that's the official ruling."
Many other colleges have been grappling with some of the same issues. Roderick Echols, president of Brown's student government and a junior at the college, talked of the need for Brown to revise its own process for designating funds to campus organizations.
Echols felt "almost frustrated" in his efforts to restructure the Undergraduate Finance Board, or UFB, the body charged with granting funds to student organizations at Brown, and which functions independently of Brown's student council.
"There needs to be a student outcry," Echols said, emphasizing the need for student government to have a greater say in distributing activities funds, which he considered inefficiently managed under the UFB.
While not a dramatic move toward centralization like that at Syracuse, the change at Dartmouth was seen by Stutzman as a means of increasing student input on campus decisions and coordinating the activities of both Student Assembly and the UFC.
While Sateia no longer serves as sole chair of the committee, she will still be present at UFC meetings.
