When the members of the Student Association Senate gathered on Wednesday for an evening session, they did not know they would spend much of the next hour discussing complex Senate bylaws and whether they could (and should) bypass them.
The meeting focused on a discussion of a potential co-sponsorship of the annual end-of-the-year event held by the School of Medicine and Health Sciences. The Medical Center Student Council asked for $10,000 to help pay for the event, which has a total budget of around $46,000.
Although the Senate Finance Committee has approved $10,000 in funding for the event in the past, this year just under $6,000 was allocated. Senator Ryan Counihan, chair of the Finance Committee, said that parts of the funding request did not meet the proper criteria, and that the amount approved fulfilled two specific sections of the budget that the committee found appropriate to fund.
Amy Waldner, co-president of the Medical Center Student Council, spoke and appealed to the Senate for the requested amount of $10,000. Some senators seemed sympathetic to the appeal, and wanted to meet the request.
However, the Senate bylaws were unclear about whether the Senate was able to approve a higher figure than that suggested by the Finance Committee. A lengthy debate ensued about whether the general body should be able to overrule the Finance Committee, whether it was appropriate to do so in this instance, and what the proper procedure would be if such an overrule took place.
In the end only a handful of senators voted to approve the funding increase. The original, lesser amount was approved, with only one vote in opposition.
The meeting was held during a time of tragedy in the GW community. Executive Vice President Kostas Skordalos started the meeting by asking for a moment of silence in memory of Sean Keefer, a freshman student who was found dead in the West Hall dorm on Tuesday evening.