The administration's new policy of directly allocating money to Student Events won't result in money being taken away from students, Senior Vice President for Students and Enrollment Jean Eddy said in an interview with the Justice last Tuesday. Eddy called for further restructuring of the process for allocating the Student Activities Fee, equal to 1 percent of every student's tuition bill. She denied the Student Union's allegations that her actions are unconstitutional and that she removed SAF funds from student control. Eddy said Student Events is still planning and deciding how the money should be spent.

Student Events used to receive 17 percent of the SAF from the Student Union Finance Board. Under the accepted proposal this money will go directly to the Department of Student Activities, which will allocate it to Student Events.

Last December students protested in front of the Bernstein-Marcus and Gryzmish administrationl buildings against Eddy's approval of Student Events' proposal to receive its funding directly from the Department of Student Activities.

Eddy said Tuesday that her decision to change the allocation of Student Events' money is part of her desire to improve social life on campus and spend unspent portions of the SAF, which she said added up to "hundreds of thousands of dollars." Eddy said she considered club's fundraising as part of this money, although she said this was only a small portion of the unspent funds. The Student Union maintains that fundraising money belongs to clubs.

Neither Eddy's office nor Union Treasurer Choon Woo Ha '08 would provide exact amounts of the funds in question.

Eddy said that Union officials told her that clubs overestimated their funding needs or had forgotten to spend the money, causing unspent funds to accumulate. She emphasized that it was important to spend SAF money promptly to ensure that students received the benefit from them while still enrolled at Brandeis. She also noted that surplus funds still existed even while the number of clubs on campus had grown in the last two to three years.

Eddy also referred to a survey she conducted in the summer of 2006, which revealed that students were interested in having larger dances and more bands come to campus.

Union Advocate Brian Paternostro '08 said Eddy had not been able to provide the survey at meetings. He said he agreed with the contents of the survey results as Eddy presented them. But, he countered that in its proposal, Student Events had included plans for more frequent smaller events such as Thirsty Thursdays in The Stein as opposed to larger events.

Eddy said Student Events approached her last November with the complaint that the F-Board allocation did not enable the club to organize events spontaneously.

Eddy said she does not consider Student Events a regular club because it applies to the entire student body. However, in the Union Constitution, Student Events is classified as a regular club. "I think that there has to be some acknowledgment that Student Events is bigger than an individual club," Eddy said.

"So putting all those things together, I think it is fair to say that is time for a really good hard look at how we expend the Student Activities Fee," she said.

Eddy recalled that she first noticed rollover in SAF funds several Union administrations ago. At the time, she agreed that the Union treasurer would report to her at the end of each year about how the extra funds had been spent but said that never happened.

Paternostro said this was hard to do, but "it's not like we're keeping her in the dark."

In 2002, the Justice reported that $122,000 in rollover funds had been discovered by the Student Union. Eddy said she approached the current Union administration about the rollover funds last fall.

Eddy said some of the measuresthe Union treasurer says will reduce rollover are not effective, including free admissions for all events paid for by the F-Board, which she called a "proposal that is flawed from the beginning."

Ha announced during last week's senate meeting that his office is organizing a committee to get feedback from students on the new policy.

Eddy said she asked the Student Union to work closely with Dean of Student Life Rick Sawyer and new Assistant Vice President for Students and Enrollment Frank Urso to come up with a solution.

She said she would like a solution to come from students.

"I really don't want to dictate this," she said. "I very much value student autonomy. It's one of the reasons why I came here.