By Hannah Gonzalez

At the Student Life Council (SLC) meeting this Wednesday, Campus Activities Board (CAB) unveiled the final draft of its proposal to move to departmental status. The resolution failed to garner enough votes to be approved, and was tabled until next month’s SLC meeting.

Maxson Thomas, FCRH ‘19, CAB president, presented the updated proposal. Unlike previous versions, the new resolution included a section detailing a possible “Year In Review” process. At the end of each academic year, the CAB president would be required to demonstrate the breakdown of the annual budget based on percentage allocated to each committee.

This presentation would be accompanied by time for questions and commentary from the SLC board and the audience. The feedback CAB receives from the board and the student body would be taken into consideration for the planning of the next year’s events. Additionally, the report would include student body attendance to a minimum three events per committee.

Thomas described the Year In Review as “in the tradition of student body oversight.”

The new resolution also established CAB’s inability to apply for ad hoc appeals from the USG Budget Committee. Ad hoc appeals enable clubs under the jurisdiction of USG to apply for additional funding through the Budget Committee. However, should CAB departmentalize, its access to this source of funding would be lost. Instead, additional funding would be negotiated from the Office of Student Involvement (OSI), as part of the partnership between the two departments.

After presenting the additions to the proposal, Thomas fielded questions from council and audience members. Concerns ranged from the question of student oversight to the process of negotiating additional funding.

Kaylee Wong, FCRH ‘20, vice president of finance for United Student Government (USG), said she was unwilling to vote on a proposal which had not yet been presented to and discussed in the Budget Committee.

“It would have been inappropriate to vote on behalf of the body I represent without them seeing a physical copy of the final proposal,” said Wong. “There was not enough time to show it to the committee and to understand their thoughts and I know the same concerns apply to the USG Senate as a whole.”

Thomas’s motion to approve the new resolution did not receive the simple majority necessary to ratify it.

Brian Reardon, FCRH ‘18, president of USG, then motioned to table the proposal for a vote at the SLC meeting on May 2. This motion was approved by the council. It will grant CAB additional time to present their proposal at both USG Senate meetings and Budget Committee meetings. From there, USG members will discuss the implications of CAB’s change in status for USG as a whole.

“USG will gather a consensus of opinions, and vote in a way that represents them,” said Wong.

The CAB presentation for Budget Committee will take place on Wednesday, April 18.