In its first meeting of the spring 2017 semester, the Undergraduate Student Government approved club budget requests, worked on ways to get on-campus clubs to interact with each other and discussed several in-house management issues.

After several first-meeting formalities and the swearing-in of new members, the first item on task was the approval of club budget requests. All 10 clubs that requested funds were approved. All funding approved by USG is used for club events, staffing and food stipends.

The Active Minds club received $780, the Anime Society received $1,050 and the Asia Club had its $6,384 request approved.

Ballroom Dancing received $441, German Club $693, HUSA $619.50 and LEAD $3,423.

Psychology Club had its $852 request approved, Students for Human Life had $1,050 approved and Volunteers in Action received $4,053.

Following the club budget hearings, the committee discussed the merits of posting its budgeting allocations online for the student body to see. Several senators previously met with the university CFO and put together a survey measuring what students wanted to know.

At this time, the survey has reached over 500 on-campus students, with many saying tuition is at an unreasonable level.

Several solutions were presented, including a comparison of other MIAC-school tuition costs and showing what percentage of students’ tuition money was being used for different services. No decision was made during the meeting on how to proceed.

Following the budget talks, the committee discussed ways to get on-campus clubs and organization to interact and collaborate with each other more often. As part of this effort, a dinner hosting all of the club presidents from around campus was approved.

Noah Brown can be reached at brow7736@stthomas.edu