Correction Appended
The Undergraduate Senate approved a budget Sunday afternoon for the 2011 fiscal year that would decrease Women’s Initiative’s budget by $1,000.
By a vote of 21-3, the budget approved for Women’s Initiative was $22,000. In the Student Government budget for 2009-2010, the organization received $23,000.
On Wednesday, the Senate Budget Committee had voted unanimously to approve a budget that would have put the organization’s budget at $17,000, which was $6,000 less than this year, according to Class of 2010 Senator Steve Dalton.
The meeting began with this version of the budget and ended four and a half hours and nine amendments later.
The meeting
Ten students spoke to oppose the Women’s Initiative budget cuts during the public comment section of the meeting and none spoke in favor of the cuts. Among the speakers was Quinn Pregliasco, a junior in the School of Public Affairs and director of employment and economic security for Women’s Initiative. Pregliasco has been nominated to serve as next year’s director of Women’s Initiative but has not yet been confirmed.
Pregliasco used visuals to demonstrate the breakdown of costs to Women’s Initiative. She said that when the per-person cost for each individual attending the Vagina Monologues compared with the per-person earnings, the profit was $6.86 per attendee. This money was then donated to D.C. organizations against sexual assault and violence.
Women’s Initiative’s cost effectiveness emerged several times throughout the meeting as a reason against cutting the budget.
When the proposal to cut Women’s Initiative’s budget by an extra $500 was on the table, Class of 2012 Senator Forrest Young equated that sum to the cost of the chocolate vaginas purchased for the “Vagina Monologues” production.
Taylor Yeates, freshman in the School of Public Affairs and acting proxy for Senator-At-Large Jenny Kim, then stood up in protest.
“My chocolate vagina tasted really good,” Yeates said.
Those who spoke in favor of matching or increasing Women’s Initiative’s past funding during the session included the organization’s Deputy Director Jenny Keating, Kennedy Political Union Director Will Hubbard, SG President Andy MacCracken, Senator-at-Large for the Class of 2013 Adam Daniel-Wayman, freshman in the School of Public Affairs and Proxy for Senator for the Class of 2013 Megan Shea and Senator for the Class of 2013 Hannah Murphy.
“I don’t know how many of you have actually been to Women’s Initiative events, but to me those are so much more important to me than Founders’ Day,” Murphy said, naming one of the causes competing for a larger share of the budget.
“I don’t know if you know of any women who’ve been affected by domestic abuse or sexual assault, but I think that’s way more important than a party at the end of the year,” she said.
Dalton, who also serves as chair of the Senate Budget Committee, defended the cuts in the original SG budget, stating that the university’s funds for a new Women’s Resource Center would cover the gap between this year’s and last year’s funding of Women’s Initiative.
The Debate
The administration plans to establish the Resource Center in the fall, The Eagle previously reported. Dalton argued that the purpose of that center would be to take over some of the responsibilities that currently fall to Women’s Initiative.
The relationship between Queers and Allies and the GLBTA Resource Center should serve as a model for Women’s Initiative and the Resource Center, according to Dalton.
But Women’s Initiative Director Sarah Brown said the organization would not be as sufficient as a club, even after the Resource Center opens.
“Even when [the Resource Center staff] are full time and fully funded, it’s vital that students have a voice in these issues because students are the ones that know about sexual assault on campus,” Brown said. “Students are the ones that know the sorts of events their peers would like to see held.”
Dalton emphasized that the budget cuts brought to the table were not a punishment or “a decision made in haste.”
“This is not necessarily a bad thing,” Dalton said before Sunday’s meeting. “This could be a great thing, that the university will finally be able to step up. And everyone who I’ve laid [the budget plans] out to that way has seemed to been like, ‘Oh, I understand now.’”
In addition to the $23,000 originally allotted to them for the 2010 fiscal year, Women’s Initiative had an extra $7,000 for programming this year. Therefore, the cuts in the budget proposed on Wednesday would have meant a 44 percent decrease from the total funding the organization received for 2009-2010, according to Brown.
Women’s Initiative circulated petitions with 395 signatures of students against the budget cuts and letters of support from students during the meeting. One of those letters came from Chairwoman of the SG Judicial Board Erika Zois.
The leaders of Women’s Initiative used e-mails and Facebook messages to encourage those on their listserv to come to the meeting and write to their senators, urging them to vote against the proposed budget cuts.
Co-Directors of AU Students for Choice Amanda Pelletier and Emily Creveling also sent out e-mails urging members to support Women’s Initiative.
The Outcome
Women’s Initiative requested more than $50,000 in their budget proposal to the SG this spring, according to Keating. Brown said the increase reflected their growth as an organization.
“All of the money that we’ve raised to donate to charity groups has gone up,” Brown said. “The attendance at all of our events has gone up. We’ve planned more events and bigger events, and Women’s Initiative is growing. And we need a budget to grow with us.”
Keating said the cuts would likely prevent Women’s Initiative from growing in the next year but that she and Brown were happy to receive $22,000 as opposed to the $17,000 allotted in Wednesday’s budget.
“This is not a success by any means,” Keating said. “Our budget was still cut and we received nowhere near what we requested. But it is much better. I am leaving here much happier than I arrived and I’m glad that there are so many people who fought for hours for us to receive the extra [$5,000].”
An earlier version of this story identified Jenny Kim as the senator for Kogod School of Business. Kim is the senator-at-large. The Eagle regrets this error.
You can reach this staff writer at sparnass@theeagleonline.com.
