The Dakotans organization was denied student funding by the Student Government Association at their meeting Tuesday night.
The group submitted an amended version of their constitution to the senate in hopes that the changes they made would make them eligible to receive general activity funds.
Sen. Karl Giuseffi, who advised the group on how to amend their constitution to become eligible for funding, said the group is not eligible because it has an exclusive membership.
‘In short, Dakotans were not considered funding eligible because they have an exclusive membership that stands at odds with SGA and Board of Regents policy for funding-eligible status,’ Giuseffi said.
To become eligible for funding, the Dakotans would have had to extend their membership to include anyone who wished to join, Giuseffi said.
As it stands amended, the group’s constitution stipulates that its members must approve new applicants for acceptance into the organization.
Giuseffi said the group may apply for funding for specific events such as its annual Prairie Fest, a battle-of-the-bands competition held outside Vermillion’s city limits. However, Giuseffi said the senate has denied funding for the event in the past because of the alcohol-related risks associated with it.
‘It seems to be the consensus that this is not something SGA wants to fund,’ Giuseffi said.
In other business, SGA amended its bylaws to allow senators to proxy their vote to a senator from a different constituency in the event they can not attend a weekly meeting.
Prior to the policy change, senators were only permitted to proxy their vote to another senator from the college they represent.
With only one representative from the school of education and the college of fine arts, senators representing those constituencies had been unable to proxy their votes.
The amendment passed with unanimous support.
Reach reporter Nick Woltman at Nick.Woltman@usd.edu.
