What's the Issue?

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Increasingly, students and clubs on campus are becoming frustrated and outraged with the way the Student Activities Commission (SAC) is doing its job. It has been like this for a while now, but with SAC's latest affront to the student body, it is time we take an immediate and firm stand - both to the unelected SAC Commissioners who seek more power and less oversight AND to Georgetown's administration, which disregards the Constitutional oversight of the Georgetown University Student Association (GUSA) over the rouge Commission. 

This is about more than the $50 we all pay in activities fees each year. This is more than the unnecessary headache and bureaucracy clubs need to go through on a regular basis to get funding, sometimes just to get back the money they have raised themselves. This is about a runaway Student Association that We the Students have lost control over. It is time that GUSA, which has dropped the ball these past few years in its oversight responsibility, to reassert the authority given to it by the students and advocate what is right, not what is the most expedient. 

I ask you to join me and others in this effort of reform. Below I have written what I believe are the necessary foundations we should base our work off of. If we can all agree on these fundamental reforms of SAC, we can then can hammer out the details from there.

What is certain is that as it stands right now, SAC is going in the opposite direction of where it should be heading. We need to work together (GUSA, SAC, clubs, and students) to design an organization that will meet our needs in a way that is effective, efficient and democratic way. If SAC does not want to cooperate, that should not, and can not, hinder the change we need. 

Accountability

SAC Commissioners should be accountable to students and clubs, either directly or indirectly. Commissioners should be democratically elected or confirmed: either by the clubs, the GUSA Senate, the student body itself or a combination thereof. 

GUSA should retain al oversight responsibility, including nominating and confirming the SAC Chair and maintaing a Senate liaison on the board. 

Function

SAC should not micromanage the finances of campus clubs, run by responsible students on this campus. The commission should have one allocation per year, with the opportunity for new clubs and existing clubs to (re)apply for funding throughout the year.  

SAC should not place an unnecessary burden on clubs in obtaining funding, filing paperwork, or other functions.

Clubs should be fully entitled to all of the money that they fundraise or get donated. 

Transparency 

Information about SAC and its activities should be available and easily accessible to students and clubs, including meeting minutes and up-to-date financial reports. 

Debate and voting on allocations and other matters should be conducted in an open and advertised setting.

Public comment should be allowed before votes, with the length of such comment discretion of the presiding officer.