VARIETY >> PAGE 7
SPORTS >> PAGE 8
9/11 prosecutor speaks out
Thornton, Tribe fall in overtime
“The hidden secret is not the quantity of people that were killed but the quality.”
College overcomes sluggish first half to force double overtime before losing, 95-91.
The Flat Hat
Vol. 102, Iss. 29 | Friday, January 25, 2013
The Twice-Weekly Student Newspaper
of The College of William and Mary
campus
Student assembly
“The SA has never gotten anywhere this close ” to the
red
Where did all the money go?
$15,000 to cover the Dalai Lama’s expenses
$3,000 to create koozies with the Medical Amnesty
Student Assembly Reserves dwindle after a semester of high-profile speakers and budget overages
Student Activity Fee Amount Per Student Per Year
$ 2012 2013
2010-2011
$89 $92
98
2011-2012
SA budget per year $600,750
$110,518 rollover
total budget for 2010-2011
$634,800
$100,485
rollover
total budget for 2011-2012
$676,200
$158,379 rollover
total budget for 2011-2012
Amount of money in dollars
It’s not a big situation, it’s more of a wake-up call.
—SA Secretary of Finance Brett Prestia ’14
“
“
Student Activities Fees Breakdown $144,500 AMP
$166,310
$13,052
Publications Council
Steer Clear
other
,1041
$
8
group
s
$63,713
Graduate Student Government
00 bly 3,1 sem $8ent As
Op
Act 64,1 6 ivit ies 6 Fun ds
$37,28
studen t
d Stu
$9 erations
$13,030
Undergrad Student Government
all graphics by meredith ramey and katherine chiglinsky/ THE FLAT HAT
The pie graph breaks down money given to certain organizations from the 2012-2013 Student Activities Budget.
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by Meredith Ramey flat hat News editor
The Student Assembly Reserve fund has reached an unprecedented low of $13,839.75 for the spring semester. Starting the year at $110,518, various large programming events, including His Holiness the Dalai Lama visiting campus and two upcoming spring concerts, have nearly depleted the funds. “The SA has never gotten anywhere this close to the red,” SA President Curt Mills ’13 said. “It’s [because] we’ve been spending a lot. It’s not something my SA career has really prepared me for because there’s always been this massive [SA] reserve. ... This budget wasn’t designed for what we did this year.” Due to the financial trouble of the SA, Mills temporarily suspended free STI testing at the Health Center for the next two weeks. Senators are currently working on a bill to allocate the funds needed to continue this program and are considering instituting limitations to avoid College students abusing the program. According to Mills and Secretary of Finance Brett Prestia ’14, the SA Reserve has dwindled due in part to free STI testing and free airport shuttles for College students during academic breaks. “The reason why we’re in this situation now [is that] in the past, we had a lot of money and it was just the general attitude on campus from, say, parking services or the health services, that the SA is providing this service, [so] just keep providing it to the end of the year and then we’ll bill you at the end of the year because you have so much money,” Prestia said. “We’ve reached the point now where we no longer have a lot of money in the reserve through Charter Days and other big events we’ve had the last couple years.” Prestia advocated operating with a more conservative outlook toward SA finances, and noted that records show that the SA receives more requests for funding in the spring than in the fall. “It’s not a big situation,
it’s more of a wake-up call,” Prestia said. “We need to work with a much more pragmatic budget and we need to start limiting these entitlements. …We just need to get in the mindset of ‘Let’s stop fully funding things that are no longer a priority.’” Although Mills is proud of the number of large events the SA was able to fund in the fall, and the prospective events being planned for the spring semester, he recognizes the inability for last year’s budget to accommodate this strain. “We can’t do a huge speaker in the fall - really two, with [Bob] Woodward, which cost Alma Mater Productions [an SA-funded group] a good deal of money, and the [His Holiness the] Dalai Lama,” Mills said. “And we can’t do two concerts in the spring combined with all these free services, combined with, you know, pretty generous budgets for student organizations combined with financial flexibility. Something’s got to give or you’ve got to raise [the student activities fee].” The student activities fee is determined through the SA budgeting process in which student organizations, including the SA itself, propose budgets for their respective organizations, taking into account planned expenses for the following year. Last year, the approved organization budgets amounted to a total budget of $676,200, resulting in a student activities fee of $98 per full-time student. This fee was paid by students at the beginning of the fall semester. As of Jan. 18, the SA controls a total of $62,491.26. This figure is comprised of the $13,839.75 remaining in the SA Reserves, $26,594 in the SA Activities and Events fund, $12,078 allocated to the Competition fund, $3,740 in the Conference fund and $6,242.51 residing in off-campus SA accounts and usually raised through SA fundraising efforts. President of Student Engagement and Leadership and Director of Office of Community Engagement Drew Stelljes addressed the SA Senate in their Tuesday See finances page 4
$10,126
to fund Homecoming grants for organizations
$2,380 to fund a new Steer Clear app
$40,000 to fund the I AM W&M week concert
$3,000 to fund rides to off-campus mental health facilities with TribeRides
$5,900
to fund the first year of a three-year contract for the massage chairs in Swem library
$21,601 other expenses
$13,840 left in the Student Assembly Reserves account at the start of this semester
Inside opinions
Inside SPORTS
Undocumented immigrants and higher education
Snowy High 35, Low 24
With higher education funding already dwindling, proposed legislation that would allow illegal immigrants to pay in-state tuition would prove too costly. page 5
College pulls adidas brand
Company violates College’s Code by katherine chiglinsky FLAT HAT NEWS EDITOR
Adidas apparel will soon disappear from the racks of the College of William and Mary Bookstore. The College officially terminated its contract with adidas in a letter sent Jan. 4. The termination marks the first time the College has ended a contract with a company due to labor rights issues. With the contract terminated, adidas apparel bearing any logo of the College will be removed from the College bookstore, clearing out adidas’ concept shop. According to Interim Director of Auxiliary Service John Byxbe, the College is currently looking at other vendors to fill the spot. In 2006, the College became a member of the Worker Rights Consortium. The group monitors the labor practices of factories that produce university apparel and notifies the College if any vendor has potentially violated the College’s Licensing Code of Conduct. In January 2012, the WRC started monitoring a potential issue at a factory, PT Kizone, in Tangerang, Indonesia. The factory’s owner left the country unexpectedly in January 2012, but the factory remained open for several months. The companies eventually closed the factory in April 2012 and left 2,800 workers without jobs or severance pay. Two of the three key buyers of the factory, Nike and the Dallas Cowboys, paid $500,000 and $55,000 worth of severance pay to workers. The third key buyer, adidas, failed to pay its share of the severance pay, $1.8 million, and offered food vouchers instead. Workers refused the vouchers since they fail to help the workers repay debts, afford school fees or cover their rents. Following the allegations, Cornell University terminated its contract with adidas in October. The University of Washington and Rutgers University terminated their contracts in November. “The only way to prevent those sorts of disasters and more mundane forms of exploitation is to require See adidas page 4
board of visitors
BOV practices standardized
Supports member education by chris mckenna FLAT HAT chief staff writer
The Virginia House of Delegates voted yesterday on two bills that would change state requirements for college and university boards of visitors across the state. The House passed HB 1952 unanimously, while HB 1940 was voted in by a 77-21 split. The former requires higher training standards for board members, while the latter guarantees the positions of non-voting student and faculty boards of visitors representatives. Student and faculty membership in boards of visitors has not yet been standardized at the state level, but the College of William and Mary has provided these positions for quite some time. “Bill 1940 would basically apply practices that William and Mary has been applying for a decade,” current faculty representative William Hausman ’71 said. The bill would require student and faculty representatives to be elected by their respective governing bodies, rather than appointed by the school administration itself. “I’m a huge fan of how we do this; I don’t hold my position because the rector or president gave it to me,” Student Assembly President Curt Mills ’13 said. “I am one of two people who is both a student body president and a student member of the Board of Visitors. If [the bill passes], William and Mary would already meet that requirement.” See BOV page 4
College snaps 11-game losing streak with win against Towson
Head coach Debbie Taylor adjusted her starting lineup and it paid dividends Thursday as the Tribe powered past Towson, 59-50. page 8