UPDATED: Nov. 15, 11:19 a.m.

Two bills, concerning the Chinese Students and Scholars Association and Jerk magazine, did not receive funding at Monday night’s Student Association meeting after presenting budget appeals. Both bills were heavily discussed.

Jerk was not funded the requested $15,944.40 because priority was given to organizations that did not miss their budget hearing, according to the Finance Board notes. This same ruling was attributed to several other bills that did not receive funding.

Flash Steinbeiser, editor in chief of Jerk, defended the publication after the assembly voted to confirm the decision. Steinbeiser, staff writer and former feature editor at The Daily Orange, said the failure to fund Jerk’s request stemmed from a clerical issue in the process.

Jerk’s publisher misinterpreted the meeting of its budget time for 2:10 p.m. when it was actually at 2:01 p.m., Steinbeiser said. He said Jerk was there at 1:45 p.m. preparing for the meeting and they simply made an error. After the time confusion was realized, Steinbeiser said, he waited to speak with Jeff Rickert, SA comptroller, for two and a half hours to discuss the situation.

‘Jerk is such a big organization on this campus. It’s a staple with over 8,000 readers, over 50,000 this year online, with opportunities for students from every college on this campus,’ Steinbeiser said after the meeting. ‘And for you to completely cut our legs out from under us over this simple human error that I tried my best to rectify? I just don’t understand it.’

After the meeting, Rickert said Jerk’s best option is to apply for special programming funding in the spring.

‘I think the standards that we have for SA budgets are not all that daunting for organizations,’ Rickert said. ‘We ask you to fill out a paper, and we ask you to show up for your hearing on time. One of those standards was not met so that came with our recommendation.’

Jerk will apply for special programming as soon as possible, Steinbeiser said. He said he was frustrated with the process of the meeting because the assembly was not made aware of the situation, and Steinbeiser was not allowed to speak before they voted.

The Chinese Students and Scholars Association’s blind date was again denied funding by the Finance Board. Despite disagreements, the board’s recommendations to not fund the event were approved by a vote of 32 to 17.

The board decided not to fund the event because an attendee would need to speak Mandarin to understand, according to the Finance Board’s notes.

Don Saleh, vice president for enrollment management, attended the meeting to give a special presentation on the issue of student acceptance into the university. Saleh said the university values GPA and a range of challenging classes that appear on an applicant’s transcript more than values like SAT scores.

Several students, both in the assembly and in the audience, took issue with this because some students are deciding not to come to SU because the numbers are sliding.

Ian Ludd, a student representative for University Senate, was upset with Saleh’s stance that states SAT scores are not an accurate description of student quality.

Ludd said, according to U.S. News and World report, 35 percent of SU’s students graduated in the top 10 percent of their class, compared to Rutgers, which has 43 percent.

Saleh defended the university’s stance on the issue and said SU is ‘ahead of the curve’ in the way admissions are regarded.

rebarill@syr.edu

Published on November 14, 2011 at 12:00 pm