At Thursday night’s SGA Senate meeting, a $1,500 special allocation to a group of five students traveling to India during Winter Term passed in a 36-3-9 vote.
The group will spend more than two weeks there to participate in a Rickshaw Run, a 1,800-mile journey down the west coast of India using auto-rickshaws as transportation. The event has no planned route; the students are entirely responsible for plotting their course, maintaining their vehicles and securing food and shelter.
The students — seniors Maria Castine, Will Stirn, Jack Halligan and Ben Donahue and junior Jordan Nulsen — have been working to raise money for Cool Earth, a rainforest preservation charity associated with the event. They have also raised money to support clean water initiatives there.
The students plan to take footage of their journey and turn it into a documentary to show to students upon their return. They’re also in the process of applying for undergraduate research credit and may present their experience during the Student Undergraduate Research Forum.
The total cost of the trip will total about $27,000, and the students asked the SGA to fund about $10,000 of the total cost. After some consideration, the finance committee decided that a $10,000 allocation to a non-organization would set an untenable precedent and opted instead to allocate $1,500 toward the cost of petrol.
Some senators wanted the finance committee to reconsider the allocation amount.
“I think this is the coolest thing ever, and if I were a high school student and I saw this on a college website, I would be sold on attending,” said Sarah Paille-Jansa, junior class president. “It’s an amazing opportunity, and I just wish we could give them more money.”
But Patrick Brown, senior class treasurer, urged the Senate to consider equality of allocations for students and groups.
“There might be students who go to conferences we might not find interesting, but we need to fund everyone on a similar level,” he said. “We can’t just fund someone on a ‘wow’ factor. We don’t know if there’s interest in this in the future. This is a one-time special allocation.”
In other news, the finance committee passed two executive allocations. One will help Elon Volunteers acquire supplies for its new lacrosse coaching program, and the other will support the travel expenses of an English class learning travel writing.