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TEChNews | Tuesday, September 22nd, 2015

 

Finance Board Chair seeks student opinion

Khaleela Zaman
DISTRIBUTION MANAGER

Every student at IIT, Shirner, and
Vandercook pays into the Student Activities
Fund (SAF). But does every student know
where their money goes? To which organiza—
tions it is allocated? And an even bigger ques—
tion: how it is allocated?

A third year student majoring in
electrical and computer engineering, Jacob
Aynessazian now heads the Finance Board
(FB) of the Student Government Association
at IIT. F8 is composed of ten students who
decide during three Saturday hearings per se-
mester how much money each student organi-
zation on campus will receive for certain line
items. As the Finance Board Chair, Aynessa-
zian seems willing to collect student opinions
about the SAP allocations in order to eventu-
ally amend the system.

During the summer, a survey was
put out by FB through Hakaink welcoming
student feedback on how the SAF should be
allocated. The simple twelve-question survey
asked students to rank twelve categories of
events based on priority on a scale from one
to five, or choosing that it should not be fund-
ed by the SAF. Aynessazian claims that the
“whole goal of it” was to gauge “what people
want so [FB] can give them what they want.”
Currently, as Aynessazian says, the “mission”
of Finance Board states that FB “should fund
social events on campus that benefit the entire
student body.” However, he feels that this mis-
sion is not doing enough, and this is why he
wants to gather more student opinions about
the SAF and its allocations. As Finance Board
Chair, he also wants to make sure an adequate
amount of students are heard. Therefore, until
he gets “a large enough portion” of responses

or opinions, he will not initiate any changes in
allocation.

As of now, there have been no
changes in how PE is allocating money from
the SAF. On the first day the Hakaink sur-
vey was sent out in a mass email to all students,

in this survey. Realizing the extremely low
response rate, Aynessazian feels it would be a

good idea to reach out to more IIT students in

more ways to collect feedback on SAF alloca—
tion before considering a change, saying that
he would personally-be upset if a huge change

SAF Allocation: September 12, 2015

 

$......

Programming: $55,404.10 at 40.7%

Conferences & Competitions: $54,812.40 at 40.2%
Capital Items: $13,527.40 at 9.9%

Projects: $7,935.50 at 5.8%

Other: $1,672.00 at 1.2%

Operations: $1,509.90 at 1.1%

Prizes & Giveaways: $1 ,300,14 at 1.0%

Career Fairs: $96.00 at 0.1%
Total Allocation: $136,257.44

there were about 70 responses collected. Now
that number is only approximately 200. In
the Fall of 2014, HT had a total enrollment
of almost 8,000 students, with just over 3,000
undergraduates. This means that only about
2.5% of all IIT students have been represented

Image by Khaleela Zaman

was made based on merely 200 responses. Ia-
cob “would like the best representation of what
the student body wants” so that changes with
allocation can be pursued that would make
students happy.

However, students have experienced

change in the process of submitting a budget
proposal to the Finance Board. Now there are
two weeks of advising prior to each PE hear-
ing. More importantly, the form on Hakaink
to create a budget proposal has been modified.
Previously the form was “too free-form,” says
Jacob Aynessazian, and the new form creates a
more uniform and structured system for pro—
posal. Now the system “does all the math,” and
“organizes everything for you,” rather than re-
quiring each treasurer to come up with their
own budget proposal layout. As line items
are filled out within the new system, there are
limitations in place that do not allow organi—
zations to propose for money outside the FB
guidelines. Iftreasurers plan on exceeding the
limits of the guidelines reasonably, though,
the excess can be proposed for in the “other”
category. Aynessazian reported that student
organizations with lots of line items found the
new budget proposal system to be more diffi—
cult than the old, but be estimated that about
85 percent of treasurers found the new system
to be easier. Since this new system was first
employed for the Finance Board hearing on
September 12, it has not been tested much yet.

If anyone has a problem,
concern, or question about Finance Board,
where SAF money goes, or if you have an
interest in becoming involved with PE,
Aynessazian welcomes you to email him at
iitsgafinanceboardchair@gmail.com. He is
also often in the Office of Campus Life (UCL)
if you want to stop by and chat with him. As
Aynessazian said, “I just want people at IIT
to be happy. Whatever you guys want, that’s
my goal. That starts with telling me what you
want.”

Museum of Science 8 Industry offers uni ue
volunteer, internship p'osmonsfo—r I'lT stu ents

Kori Bowns
EDITOR-IN—CHIEF

The Museum of Science and Indus—
try (M51) is the largest science museum in the
western hemisphere, holding over 35 thousand
artifacts and nearly 14 acres of interactive ex—
hibits and experiences. The museum’s home is
the former Palace of Fine Arts building from
the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in
Chicago’s Hyde Park neighborhood, and it
opened in 1933 under philanthropist Julius
Rosenwald’s vision to create a hands—on indus—
try museum in the United States. Each year, the
museum works toward achieving its mission to
“inspire the inventive genius in everyone” with
the help of several Illinois Tech students.

Each semester, undergraduate stu-
dents from IIT have a unique service learning
opportunity at the Museum of Science and In—
dustry through the MSI Internship Program.
Students apply to spend a few days during the
semester volunteering at the museum, present-

 

ing science demonstrations to the museum’s
general audience. Volunteers who complete a
required minimum number of volunteer hours
at the museum qualify to apply for a paid in-
ternship at MSI over the summer. Last year,
seven interns selected to work at the museum
as interns learned a variety of demonstrations
and presented them to over 35 thousand mu-
seum guests.

In order to become eligible for the
internship, students must first attend an in—
formation session held early in the semester
and apply to volunteer at the museum over the
course of the Fall or Spring semester during
the academic year. During the semester, these
students learn to present three interactive and
hands-on demonstrations to museum guests.
Volunteers work alongside lead interns, stu—
dents who were summer interns in previous
years, to receive coaching and support as they
learn more about presenting to different audi—
ences and speaking in public. Demonstrations
done by volunteers cover topics including
sound, electricity, and Newton’s Laws. While

presenting the demonstrations, student vol—
unteers develop skills in public speaking, vo-
cal projection, questioning, and positive rein-
forcement.

Twelve volunteers are accepted to
the program each semester. Upon completion
of 20 total volunteer hours in a semester, the
volunteers qualify to apply for one of the paid
summer internship positions, where they learn
larger programs and work full—time during
IIT’s summer break.

The MSI—IIT internship partnership
is now entering its 9th year. This partnership
began with a common trustee between IIT and
MSI, and the program aims to foster commu-
nication skills in students while making sci—
ence education accessible to the community
through the delivery of several fun and inter-
active live science demonstrations at MSI.

Rubab Fatima and Kathleen Mullin,
two IIT students who completed the intern—
ship this past summer, say they’ve learned a
lot by being volunteers and interns with the
museum. Fatima says that the communication

WK»-

skills she has gained are valuable. “A lot of us
are in STEM fields; it helps a lot to have a job
where we’re not holed up in a lab somewhere
and we have to communicate science with oth—
ers,” she said. Mullin added, “We get to talk to
people who don’t have the same background
as us, which will be useful training for any
future job.” Students who complete the intern—
ship and volunteership also report increased
confidence, more comfort with public speak—
ing, and positive experiences in workingin a
team.

The MSI—IIT volunteership and in-
ternship program is open to undergraduates
of all majors at IIT. In order to apply for the
program, students must attend one of several
information sessions being held this week. In-
formation sessions are taking place on Mon—
day and Tuesday in The Bog at 12:40 pm. and
Wednesday in E1 102 at 12:40 pm. Questions
about the program can be directed to Patrick
Fina at pfina@iit.edu.

     

Photos by Kari Bowns