Editor’s note: This article was initially published in The Daily Gazette, Swarthmore’s online, daily newspaper founded in Fall 1996. As of Fall 2018, the DG has merged with The Phoenix. See the about page to read more about the DG.
Student Council was running late this week due to a long budget appeals meeting. Combined with a short agenda, the meeting ran quicker than usual, and opened with President Peter Gardner ’08 declaring that he “feel[s] like Hugo Chavez.”
SAO
Youngjun Heo ’09, along with Educational Representative Elisha Ann ’08, represented SAO to the Student Council at this meeting, quickly running through a few points of interest for the organization.
Heo particularly mentioned trouble with receiving itemized receipts from some of the food-establishment SAO shops from, but Student Council members were quick to mention that SBC will accept hand-written receipts which include a telephone number, date, and signature.
A larger concern is SAO’s desire for an ‘Asian Mentor.’ “I know this is costly, … but it would be nice to have someone in the administration who could be a mentor for the Asian community,” explained Heo. “But this is obviously out of your [Student Council’s] hands.”
Members of Student Council weren’t so sure this was beyond their reach. “Nothing is out of our hands,” said Gardner, and Financial Representative Sarah Roberts ’08 mentioned that she had already asked Dean of Students Jim Larimore about the issue.
Heo and Ann also hoped that more members of funding bodies could attend their events. “Last semester, Tamara was the only person from FFS who came to any of our events,” said Heo. He explained that, if more members of funding bodies like SBC or FFS came to SAO events, those members might be willing to support the group more.
$10:$1 Campaign
The centerpiece of the $10:$1 campaign, in which Gil Kemp will match every student donation by an order of magnitude, will be Student Groups Advisor Paul Apollo ’09 in a bear suit, which Student Council plans to pick up on today.
“Everyone will give more money if they see Paul in a Smokey the Bear costume,” declared Gardner.
The campaign has the Alumni Council particularly excited. Gardner, who attended Council meetings over the past weekend, noted that “the alums are feeling like they need to be stepping up.”
Currently, students have donated $1.00 to the campaign. “We’ve got $11 for the campaign. I have put in a dollar,” said Gardner. “It was a symbolic gesture. And I WILL put more in.”
So what happens if students want to make their donations now? I don’t remember seeing anything in the past couple of student council reports on if there are specific people that students can give money to now or if perhaps gifts can be made online. Can students use the gift.swarthmore.edu website? I’m sure that there will be a lot of donations once you’ve got the bear and stuff, but I bet that you’d get some gifts if people knew how to give (of course I’m not on campus so maybe this has been mentioned somewhere else). In general, have students been in touch with anyone from the development offices who can provide support for your fundraising efforts?
Also, my experience as a class agent has helped me to learn that a little bit of competition can influence people to make donations. One possible suggestion that might help to raise even more funds could be to have some kind of competition. Perhaps there can be some kind of incentive for the class that has the highest level of participation or raises the most money. These techniques are used in alumni fundraising, and trophies are presented to the winning classes at alumni weekend. We also had participation goals set for senior class gift fundraising and hung big thermometers with our goals and progress in Parrish. Anyway I just thought I’d let you know about something that has worked in the past.
As a member of FFS, I’d say that the statement we don’t support SAO is extremely problematic. This year, more of our budget has gone to SAO than to any other group by FAR. And I have attended one of their events this semester, though I can’t speak for the rest of the committee. Not that it matter since no one reads the comments section for this….