In an effort to follow through on its recommendations, the Student Governance Review Task Force, formed this winter to conduct a review of Dartmouth's student government organizations, will meet with members of the Undergraduate Finance Committee on Monday. Though the group is not scheduled to present its recommendations to the Student Assembly until Tuesday, the meeting with the UFC will give the task force a chance to display its recommendations before funding is allocated for the year.
The nine-member task force, whose members have various levels of student government involvement, was formed by Student Assembly after this winter's controversy over the efficacy of student government, which began with an attempt to impeach current Student Body President Tim Andreadis '07.
Andreadis and task force chair Kapil Kale '07 said that they felt it was important that the UFC hear the group's proposals before it begins to dole out funding for the next fiscal year, a process that will begin when the UFC begins to hear organizations' proposals on Wednesday.
"Given that a number of the task force's recommendations are not only about structure but also about funding, I just wanted to make sure that the UFC had time to consider the recommendations," Andreadis said.
The task force contacted the UFC, who gave the task force a time slot to make its presentation on Monday.
Andreadis, who has previously said that he hoped the task force would make funding a focus of its review, noted the importance of his role in pushing the project forward.
"Considering that the task force was made out of a piece of [Assembly] legislation I feel like it's my job to lobby as hard as I can to make sure its recommendations are being considered," Andreadis said.
In preparation for Monday's meeting, Andreadis and the task force met with representatives from the student governance organizations to present preliminary findings on Friday.
"The idea there was to brainstorm and bounce ideas off of them regarding all proposals," Kale said.
Joe Prencipe '09, a UFC representative for Collis Governing Board, said the meeting was helpful.
"It was a really useful forum," he said. "I think it's great we're talking about these reforms."
Prencipe said, however, that CGB ultimately answers only to the UFC for budget questions. As a result, any real change will need to come with a UFC mandate.
"UFC is the only entity we answer to right now," Prencipe said.
Kale said the meeting was helpful to the task force as they put the final touches on their proposals -- both those for presentation to the UFC on Monday, and those that will be presented to the Assembly on Tuesday.
Two recommendations that Kale confirmed would be included in the task force's report are the creation of a universal funding application in lieu of the current system which allows each funding organization to have its own application and the institution of regular meetings between the officers of those groups involved in cosponsorship, including the Assembly, Programming Board, Collis Governing Board, the Greek Leadership Council, and the Council on Student Organizations.
Other recommendations will be unveiled on Monday and at Tuesday's meeting. Kale said he looks forward to the chance to present to the UFC.
"I think the UFC is the closest thing we can get to a collection of all the minds who we need to talk to about the reforms," Kale said.
