The Student Activities Fee Assessment Committee is considering changes that could include adding Greek organizations as a presence on the committee in the future.

Every student pays $27.50 each semester into a Student Activities Fee that is split between eight different directly funded student organizations.

Members of the  committee include The Oakland Post, Student Program Board, Student Congress, WXOU radio, Student Video Productions, Student Life Lecture Board, Club Sports and the Student Activities Funding Board.

All other student organizations are funded out of the 24 percent portion given to the SAFB for this purpose.

Going Greek?

There is a movement within SAFAC looking to possibly include Greek organizations as a directly funded group underneath the SAFAC umbrella.

According to Student Program Board Chairman Nick McCormick, having Greek organizations as part of the committee just makes sense.

“Greek organizations and Greeks in general make up a large part of student life, and I know two percent sounds weird, but two percent is quite a lot in the scope of how many students are involved in student organizations and in the scope of how many student organizations they make up out of the total percentage,” he said.

There are currently 419 students involved in Greek life.

McCormick, a member of the Tau Kappa Epsilon fraternity, said Greek organizations would join through the Greek Council.

The Greek Council consists of the 15 Greek fraternities and sororities on campus. Each organization appoints its president and two delegates to the Council, McCormick said.

SAFB Chairman Brandon Hanna said he does believe Greek organizations should take on a larger profile on the campus.

“I think Greek organizations on campus need a better and bigger representation,” Hanna said. “One thing that I think needs to happen for Greek organizations is for them to have their own office. Many other universities have their own Greek office, usually in their union center.”

Hanna would like to hear from the Greek organizations themselves on what their needs are before moving forward.

“SAFAC as a whole has not been contacted by these Greek organizations,” he said. “I think we can’t really do anything until Greek organizations bring the issue to SAFAC as a whole and then we can address the issue from there.”

Tightening belts

In order for Greek organizations to join SAFAC as a committee member, the current amount of funding given to directly funded organizations would have to be reproportioned.

In order to examine the feasibility of this, SAFAC chair and Student Congress President Samantha Wolf has asked each organization to do an examination of their budgets.

“I really want to push everyone in SAFAC to look at their budgets and see if they are spending the students’ money effectively,” Wolf, a member of Alpha Delta Pi, said. “If they are doing that already, fantastic. But I think there is always room for improvement.”

Wolf said the committee can only make recommendations to OUSC, and they can choose to place the issue on the ballot for a student vote during Student Congress elections in March.