For the past 27 years, the Undergraduate Council of Students and the Undergraduate Finance Board have collaborated to serve the Brown community by formally categorizing and funding student groups. While the two bodies have served the community admirably, we admit there is room for improvement.
Compared to other student governments that fund student activities under a similar mechanism — through a subsidiary finance board — UCS is severely underfunded, especially when compared to its Ivy League peers. Penn and Cornell's undergraduate assemblies both have budgets about 10 times larger than Brown's. And Dartmouth's assembly, one that represents a smaller student body than Brown's, has a budget 21 times the size of UCS's budget.
Under the de facto structure, UCS requests a budget from UFB to fund its yearly operations. UFB's budgetary power over UCS obscures the institutional relationship between the two bodies. Discord between UCS and the finance board often hinders the council's ability to adequately and efficiently fund projects that enhance student life, as interrelational strife can, at times, influence the funding decisions handed down by UFB.
As a result, Daniel Pipkin '14, the UCS-UFB liaison, introduced an amendment to the UCS Constitution yesterday to formally delineate the relationship between UCS and UFB. UCS elected to propose this delineation of powers as a constitutional change, not a change in the Code of Operations, in the interest of student involvement, clarity and transparency.
Constitutional changes require the approval of Brown's student body. UCS urges all students to approve this constitutional amendment in the online referendum, which can be found on MyCourses. The passage of the referendum would ensure that Brown's student government could increase its ability to meet the needs of the student body in a timely manner and with adequate resources.
Article V of the UCS Constitution currently stipulates that UCS "empowers" UFB as an ancillary body to fund student groups at Brown. The two additional clauses proposed by the council serve to further clarify the relationship between UCS and UFB. The first sentence in Article V, as amended, would read, "The council shall fund its own operations and those of its subsidiary with money from the Student Activities Fund." A new sentence at the end of Article V would read, "UCS reserves the right to review and amend the constitution of its subsidiary. As inherent in this right, supplementary regulations put forth by the subsidiary could thus be deemed a violation of its own constitution."
UCS guarantees that changes in the Code of Operations will ensure that there is no abuse of funding power. The changes to the Constitution have built in a set of checks and balances, one of which requires the director of student activities to approve the UCS budget after it has been authorized by a 2/3 "yea" vote by the council.
In the fall, UCS commissioned Pipkin to investigate structural reforms to improve the transparency and service that Brown's student government provides to its community. Over the course of the first semester, Pipkin reviewed the governing documents of the two bodies and consulted with other student leaders across the country.
During the 2011-12 school year, the council received a budget of $3,500, which was thoroughly insufficient to fund its operations. Currently, it must seek funding from other sources, such as student groups and administrative departments, to pay for its projects and operations. With the inherent limitations of seeking outside funding from student groups and departments with their own agendas, this funding mechanism is predictably inefficient and inadequate. Under this amendment, UCS would strengthen its charge to manage student groups and grant seed funding to emerging groups with ambitious community-focused agendas.
UCS urges all students to vote "yea" in the referendum. It will be administered on MyCourses Feb. 9-13.
If you have any questions about the proposed changes, feel free to email us at ucs@brown.edu.
