Engineering clubs are disappointed with Student Association’s policies and communication

Institution for Electrical and Electronics Engineers loses $3,000 after being derecognized by SA

The governor’s proposal will allocate $53 million for hiring new full-time faculty at over 30 SUNY Campuses.

UB plans to use the money allocated to them by the governor to hire 70 more faculty in addition to its annual 40-60 tenure track hires.

The Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences (JSMBS), The College of Arts and Sciences (CAS) and the School of Engineering (SEAS) received the most funding for faculty hires.

JSMBS is set to receive $2.4 million for 16 new faculty hires, while SEAS will be given $2.260 million for 15 new faculty. CAS will receive $2.203 million for 15 new faculty.

The Institution of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) was derecognized from SA in August, due to an SA error, according to club president Owen Farrell.

Farrell, a senior electrical engineer major, was initially unaware he had to update the club’s returning e-board members information in the SA database, so he only included new e-board members in the update. Farrell then sent the whole e-board for the 2022-23 academic year to SA Assistant Administration Director Amanda Johnson and said the information was correct on the website in the spring.

Despite that email, SA President Becky Paul-Odionhin told the club in August that it had one day to complete the eboard on the website or else it would be derecognized. Paul-Odionhin sent them a broken link to the site where he could make the changes.

“It is a bummer that the link doesn’t work,” Paul-Odionhin said in response to Farrell’s email telling her the link was broken. She then told Farrell to check the SA website and update the e-board again. She said she forwarded the “request” to people who would know more about club affairs.

A few days later, the SA told IEEE’s secretary that the club had been derecognized. Farrell reached out to Paul-Odionhin, saying he did everything she asked and wanted to know how to resolve it.

He never received a response.

Farrell contacted SA Vice President Sammi Pang with proof he had updated the website in May. Pang said the club was “missing two updates by the registration deadline.” Farrell replied, saying that although he originally listed two e-board members with the wrong titles, he had fixed the mistake.

“I am positive that this was completed,” he wrote to Pang.

The club was deleted and had to reapply to be a new club, losing its nearly $3,000 budget. Pang originally told IEEE it could get its budget back, but when the club followed up with her, she denied ever saying that and suggested applying for supplemental funding, according to Farrell.

IEEE became a new club and applied for supplemental funding, receiving $1,000.

“Right now we’re just using whatever we can find, just scrounging for materials,” Farrell said of IEEE’s projects. “It’s really not ideal.”

Pang told The Spectrum that if IEEE does not fulfill the conditions of the Annual Registration and Requirements for Recognition policy, a club is automatically derecognized.

She said IEEE’s situation had been “resolved” and did not explain what happened further.

Another engineering club, the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) was preparing for their trip to Wisconsin for the Clean Snowmobile competition when SA