As of March 17, the Organizational Relief Fund held $130,000 in its account waiting for University student organizations to claim it, but recent dilemmas have caused the ORF to place stipulations on who can receive funding.
According to the Center for Student Leadership and Involvement Web site, the ORF will pay for the travel expenses of student organizations that want to send full-time students to represent the University at educational, academic or professional conferences or conventions.
Priority is given to registered student organization representatives, University departments and, in some cases, students representing the University at certain activities, the Web site said.
KC White, associate dean of students, said in 1979 the Student Government Association, which is what Student Government was called at that time, passed a resolution allowing students to vote on a referendum to establish the ORF as funds separate from SGA.
During a March 17 Student Senate meeting, White told the Senate the ORF was established to allow campus organizations to represent LSU through the nation.
The University students then voted to obtain funding for the ORF from a $3 student fee, White said to the Senate. The fee is taken only during the spring semester.
White said the students voted to pass it and then went to the Louisiana Board of Supervisors, where it was passed and enacted in January 1980.
In January 2003, the ORF placed stipulations on organizations seeking funding, she said. The stipulations say organizations cannot take money from the ORF, the Student Senate and the Programming Support and Initiatives Fund for the same event.
A few weeks ago, the Senate gave the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineering sought funds from the Senate’s contingency to attend a conference.
SG vice president and ORF chairman Jason Wesley said the ORF approved the IEEE funds to travel to a convention. The Senate then voted to give the group money for their convention registration.
The Senate was aware of the fact that IEEE received money from ORF, Wesley said. IEEE in no way tried to mislead either group.
But questions arose about whether it was OK for organizations to seek funding from more than one source, he said. Essentially, the funds groups are seeking are coming from one pool of money.
Wesley said the new stipulations state that organizations traveling to conventions or conferences should seek all of their funds from ORF.
“The ORF have made these stipulations because they don’t want groups that double-dip or triple-dip,” White said.
Wesley also said the old application that is still in circulation is creating confusion for some student organizations.
Both Wesley and White said the old 2001 application still can be found, if students search for the ORF on the University’s Web site, but a revised 2003 application has been made.
Wesley said they are working with Computing Services to pull the old application from the University’s Web site.
Knowledge of the ORF funds has created another problem.
White said student organizations’ lack of knowledge, among other things, has left the ORF committee sitting on the nearly $130,000. “My personal opinion is we are holding $130,000, and that is student-body money, and organizations are being denied the opportunity to learn the experience of representing LSU,” she said during the senate meeting.
White said the lack of knowledge about the fund is, in a way, denying the money to students.
Both Wesley and White said presentations and outreach have been done to increase student organization awareness of the money.
Wesley said organizations that wish to seek funds from the ORF must apply, and a department in the University must sign off on it.
The ORF reimburses the department that signs off on the trip, he said.
White said the money organizations have not claimed as a reimbursement will be put back into the fund and used for other groups that have applied.