Update 10/14/15: The SAFC updated its website to fix all the errors originally pointed out in this article. These changes were unannounced.
How do you spell hypocrisy? S-A-F-C
Last week the Cornell Sun reported on the Student Activities Funding Commission denying several student groups funding due to their failure to follow application process procedures and deadlines, and many students’ discontent with the cumbersome application process and difficulty of using OrgSync.
In short, the SAFC, a byline funded organization which distributes money from the student activity fee to non-byline funded organizations, denied many student groups funding for not following certain procedures, one of which is not updating information on OrgSync.
Low and behold, the SAFC itself on its OrgSync page has not updated its own information. Currently listed as the non-voting members are last year’s non-voting members, among them Sarah Balik ’15, former president of the Student Assembly.
According to the new SAFC charter, however, these positions on the Student Assembly (SA) are no longer automatically given non-voting membership—only the SA SAFC Liason is. So it seems that section of the website should not be there at all.
More problems: the version of the SAFC charter on the group’s website indicates it is the 2011 version even though it includes major revisions to the SAFC enacted last academic year.
Additionally, the apparently updated charter includes a name change re-branding the SAFC as the “Student Activities Funding Commission of Cornell University, hereafter referred to as the SAFC”, but the website also references the SAFC as the “Student Assembly Finance Commission”. The Cornell Sun also referred to the SAFC as the “Student Assembly Finance Commission” in the article linked above.
Could a student group applying for funds at the mercy of the SAFC refer to itself by two names throughout its application and provide incorrect information regarding the status of its charter?
So, student groups that were perhaps unfairly denied funding, what say you about the SAFC’s failure to comply with its own standards?
