SGA passes resolution allocating $9,000 for CDC media center
In a 17-8 vote, Student Government Association Senators decided to allocate $9,000 for a new media center for the Center of Diversity & Community Tuesday evening, a move that some Senators thought was an inappropriate use of unallocated funds.
There were no empty seats at the SGA’s meeting to show their concern of the CDC’s current media center as well as their need for a new one. SGA President, Nathaniel Steinlicht, said it was one of the greatest student turnouts he has ever seen at an SGA meeting.
Students who came to the meeting were passionate about the CDC receiving the funds, claiming the money would benefit students’ experience overall at USD.
Saeed Hani Dabbour, a first-year business finance student, was especially passionate about the matter.
“The CDC is my home away from home, so it’s really important,” he said. “I pay my fees, and it would be beneficial for me to see my fees used for something that I use in my community, especially since a lot of student organizations use it. Putting $9,000 into the CDC will help and advance students’ experience.”
Jack Seitz, a second-year political science and history education major and at-large senator, was one of the senators who felt that giving these funds to the CDC was inappropriate.
“It was a matter of making sure that our money stays for student organizations and not groupings of university things in general,” he said. “Another senator brought it up in our finance committee meeting that this bill gives money back to the university and the university should be following some guidelines before they pass it to us.”
The money allocated to the CDC will come from the SGA reserve fund. The fund is composed of leftover General Activities Fee funds that have not been used by student organizations.
Other students said the CDC is rapidly growing in visitors, and it’s necessary for the CDC itself to accommodate the needs of the visitors they’re having.
Virginia Osueke, a third-year international studies and medical biology major, said the CDC needs to better accommodate its visitors.
“The CDC is not just used by us, it is also used by professors for their lectures. They are using that small TV to educate their students. The CDC is getting bigger every semester,” she said. “There are more and more students that show up. It would be very beneficial to see the media center to grow as the students also go.”
In order to accommodate its visitors, the CDC would like to create a friendlier space for when there are no activities being held. To create this center, Lamont Sellers, the associate vice president for diversity, said Direct TV and an Apple TV would be needed.
In total the new media center will cost about $14,000. The remaining $5,000 not allocated by SGA will come from Student Services.
Since the CDC is a center for organizations, and isn’t an organization itself, some senators argued that it wasn’t appropriate to use General Activities Fee (GAF) for the CDC.
Although it was thought by some that funding the CDC was inappropriate, Sellers said that “the university provides very little funding for the CDC.”
Sellers continued, saying that the CDC needs funding because it would, in turn, benefit the students of USD.
“This is a center for all of our students. So, we get caught up in the diversity part of the name, but this is the Center for Diversity & Community, and we really are here for all of our students,” he said. “This is an investment in our students, and in the center. Our funding comes from you.”
