The Student Assembly passed The Homecoming Grant Act Tuesday following debate among Senators.
The Homecoming Grant Act would allocate a maximum of $10,000 for up to four grants given to four social sororities or fraternities. The 22 fraternities and 12 sororities would have the opportunity to propose Homecoming event ideas inclusive of the entire College of William and Mary community. The Executive Department of Student Life and the Finance Committee would select which Greek chapters would receive funds for their events.
“The act will make Homecoming more inclusive for the whole William and Mary campus community,” Senator Matt Paganussi ’14 said.
Several senators contested certain aspects of the act, especially in regard to attendance, conflict of interest and liability.
“It doesn’t really foster a community spirit with the organizations and the rest of the student body by only giving this money to Greek organizations,” Senator Zach Marcus ’12 said.
Chairman of the Finance and Budget Committee Noah Kim ’12 proposed opening the grant to other groups in the future.
“Greek chapters are the best equipped to be organizing these events, and down the road we may be thinking about opening this up further to other groups. For now, this is a great model,” Kim said.
Senators voted eight to six in favor of The Homecoming Grant Act, sending it to Finance and Outreach Committees for further approval.
Senators voted to pass The Freshman Elections Act, which allocated $3,140 from the Student Reserve to Votenet to pay for eBallot after the SA accrued a late fee.
“[We are] working on making a cohesive packet for whoever is election chair next year,” Finance Chair Grace Colby ’13 said.
Lastly, the SA introduced The Economist and WSJ Act. The bill, which remains in review, is designed to help students stay in touch with current events. If passed, the bill would allocate funds for 500 subscriptions each of The Economist and The Wall Street Journal. The SA unanimously sent the bill to the Student Life and Finance Committees.