The Student Assembly voted Wednesday to allocate $7,650 to two separate activities: a concert organized by the College of William and Mary’s student radio station, WCWM, to be held on April 16 on the Day for Admitted Students, and a sexual education program entitled, “I Love Female Orgasm.”
WCWM representative Todd Van Luling ’13 introduced the concert. He said that while the concert would be the culminating festivity of admitted students day, it would be mainly for College students.
“We have two performers, Pictureplane and Dominique Young Unique- who are up and coming artists- coming to the concert,” Luling said.
Luling asked the SA for $4,000 for the event- $1,500 for each artist fee and $1,000 for equipment. In addition to the two music artists, he said WCWM is trying to book Ted Williams, the now famous voice-over artist from Columbus, Ohio, to emcee the event. This would raise costs by an additional $4,000.
A debate ensued as to how much money should set aside for the event. Both Senator Grace Colby ’13 and Senator Noah Kim ’13, wary of spending too much money, but were willing to pay only up to $3,000.
“It is very, very important to understand that this [$8,000] is almost a third of our budget, and next year we aren’t going to be able to do things like this,” Colby said. “We aren’t going to be able to replenish the student activities and events reserve because we put even less money in the student activities reserve this year than we did last year.”
Kim stated this is the type of thing the SA should support, but emphasized how the SA is “strapped for cash” and the need to conserve money.
“Moving into next year, we will not be able to support clubs the way we have this past year,” Kim said.
Senator Michael Douglass ’11, while acknowledging the need to spend money carefully, emphasized the importance of investing in organizations like WCWM.
“At the end of the day it’s students money, and we should be spending students’s money, or getting it back to them,” Douglass said. “We do have the money now, so we should support innovative things. By pulling off this large event, WCWM may be able to get big sponsors in the future. AMP is trying to reach out to people in much the same way, based off their past successes. I think we should give WCWM the same chance.”
The SA approved allocating $4,000 for the concert, by an 11 to six vote.
Justine di Giovanni ’11 introduced the “I Love Female Orgasm” event, a national sexual education program. She said it was also held in 2008, and was a very popular and positive event. Unlike in 2008, though, AMP is not paying for the event. di Giovanni asked the SA for $3,650 to cover its costs.
“We have enough right now where if we raised this by ourselves we could make it happen, but what we normally do is when we have the Vagina Monologues, all the money we get from that goes to the Avalon Shelter in Williamsburg,” di Giovanni said. “Where this year, because we need the money, we can’t do that. If we get money from the SA, all the money raised will go to Avalon.”
The motion to allocate $3,650 for the event was passed by unanimous consent.
