Senior Vice President for Students and Enrollment Jean Eddy defended her decision to allow Student Events to receive its funding directly from the Department of Student Activities instead of from the Student Union Finance Board in a campuswide e-mail Friday, her first public statement on the issue. Eddy was not available for an interview with the Justice as of press time.

"Statements that there has been a violation of the Student Union Constitution, or that some percentage of the allocable student activities budget has been taken away from students is a gross misperception at best," Eddy wrote. "No money has been taken out of the hands of students."

Students protested last month outside of the Bernstein-Marcus and Gryzmish administration buildings against Eddy's decision. Eddy wrote she supports students' right to organize and values student autonomy. The proposal for Student Events to receive 17 percent of the SAF, representing one percent of each students' tuition bill, was accepted by Eddy Nov. 26.

According to Eddy, her decision was based on an increase in unspent funds amounting to "hundreds of thousands of dollars" managed by the Student Union. "It is my intention to ensure that funds that families pay for the support of events and activities are indeed spent," she wrote.

"Student Events has nothing to with any type of rollover," Director of Union Affairs Jason Gray '10 said. Gray said Eddy is merely using the "unspent funds" argument to confound the real issue at stake, which the Union said is student autonomy and the unconstitutional nature of Eddy's decision.

Gray said Eddy originally explained her decision as a measure to improve social life on campus. "I believe that change is needed to achieve the kind of improvement to our social programming that is needed " Eddy wrote in her Nov. 26 letter to the Student Union.

Union Advocate Brian Paternostro '08 said, "Social life and the Student Events issue is not an issue of the SAF." He added that "It's not a problem that can be solved by talking about money, creating fiscal policy or changing anything about our spending practices."

Gray said Eddy violated Article 5, Section 1 and Article 7, Section 4 of the Student Union's Constitution. According to the Constitution, the Union Treasurer bears the ultimate responsibility for the distribution of the Student Activities Fee. The Constitution also calls for the creation of a Finance Board to allocate funds to clubs.

"Now the Finance Board no longer does that for Student Events," Gray said.

Gray and Paternostro said some of the "unspent funds" mentioned by Eddy included club's fundraising efforts. Clubs are entitled to this money, they said.

Union Treasurer Chief of Staff Jahfree Duncan '09 said he thought unspent funds would decrease as more and more clubs become chartered and request more money. Finance Board Chair Max Wallach '09 pointed out that during Early Marathon for this semester, 86 percent of money requested was allocated, a 16 percent increase from the previous semester.

"Hundreds of thousands of dollars is a large exaggeration" with regard to existing rollover funds, Wallach said. "We don't like rollover and we work to minimize it."

Wallach and Duncan explained that F-Board spending would further increase due to changes in F-Board policies this semester with regard to free events and an increase in the F-Board's funding scope. Wallach said he thought the proposal Eddy was referring to as being "not viable" was the new free ticketing policy for all F-Board sponsored events.

Wallach and Duncan said the concerns expressed by Student Events regarding planning flexibility and transaction speed could be addressed with the treasury's new 24 hour turnaround policy for processing funding requests and by attending treasury office hours to request emergency funding.

"The two things are related, but [Rollover] was not one of our major concerns," said Lauren Barish '08, director of Student Events. "We're really just moving ahead trying to provide a really great semester and showing that the changes made will really be beneficial to the students.