By Mike Stolar
Executive Director of the Student Finance Board
As Student Finance Board (SFB) Executive Director I’d like to address some of the concerns and accusations made by Venkat Ramamoorthi in last week’s issue of The Signal. Unfortunately, his article was considerably misinformed, and shows a lack of research on his part. It is easy to sit back and make accusations of your fellow students. It’s just as easy to actually put in the small amount of time and effort into researching your complaint. We make ourselves readily available to field any concerns students have, and can be reached at sfboard@tcnj.edu.
In his article, Mr. Ramamoorthi lists the speaking fee for Mike Huckabee, but fails to state the expense for the “banquet” put on by the Student Government Association and SFB. This is because the Student Activity Fee (SAF) funded banquet is a complete fabrication. The dinner that occurred came from SGA’s own pocket — from money that they fundraised and have every right to spend how they wish. They did, however, choose to spend $1,600 of their money for new gym equipment in the Physical Enhancement Center. The accusation that SFB would choose to fund this event to have a dinner with Huckabee is baffling. Only two SFB members attended dinner with Huckabee and both serve on SGA. Additionally, neither of those members had a vote or were even present during discussion of the Huckabee request. To avoid conflicts of interest, the SFB does not permit members of the presenting club to be present during discussion of the request. Contrary to the belief of many students who choose to be uninformed, the SFB is not a corrupt organization. Each year new members campaign claiming that they will fix SFB, however upon election they are shocked to find what safeguards we have in place, and how responsible we are when allocating the SAF.
While Huckabee’s speech was shorter than I had hoped, it is important to take consideration of the many variables that come into play when scheduling an event. For instance, Huckabee, not the SGA, scheduled the time for dinner. There are always time constraints when booking events, but particularly so when hosting a prominent public figure with both a radio and TV show.
As always, I encourage students to challenge each other, however, this particular accusation is disheartening, as there was almost a complete lack of research behind this compliant. Mr. Ramamoorthi presents his opinion as fact, although it is in reality no more than rampant speculation. The members of the Student Finance Board joined to have a say in campus activities and to responsibly allocate the Student Activity Fee. Whether or not you choose to believe so, we approach that task very seriously.
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Mike I know we just talked about this, but since this is public I think it is appropriate to post what we talked about:
The point that my article as making was that it is it was inappropriate for the SFB to okay a banquet prior to the presentation to the students.
Although the SGA may have paid for the catering of the banquet, it is the student body that was billed the $25,000 for the speaker’s time. The return on this investment of a presentation lasting less than an hour is unacceptable.
Furthermore, by approving the banquet to occur before the presentation set up a situation where the banquet for a minority was able to run its full length, while the actual event for the majority of students was abbreviated.
I did not mean my article to be condemnation of the SGA or SFB at large, but I do not want to see these course of events repeated.
This is my opinion; how you take it is your decision. I think to reject it would be a mistake.
Mr. Venkat:
This is an observation from a neutral observer. Yes, the student body was billed $25,000 for the event. However, there are about 6,000 students at TCNJ. So you proably paid somewhere between $4 to $4.50 for a 45 minute lecture by a former presidential candidate and the chance to get a book signed by him. That’s not exactly some outlandish misuse of your money.
Could the whole scheduling/banquent/length of the presentation issue been handled better? Perhaps. But stop indicting the whole SFB like you are the victim of some massive rights violation. They seem to be far from the sort of selfish organization that screws over the student body, like you portray them to be. Take your sob story elsewhere.
Mr. Venkat, I dislike you.
Club basketball is responsible for this entire debacle.
I would like to say that I am in favor of Stolar. Not you Venkat. You have our support Mr. Stolar…..the Golden Order of the Lion and Stolar united!
Yes Stolar, the Communist Party of New Jersey also stands by your side.
Venkat, I understand your opinion but there are far more constructive ways to express it than accusing your fellow students who have dedicated countless hours contributing to the campus in an attempt to make it a better place for you. Again, you have misconstrued facts and even our conversation in an effort to paint myself, the SFB, and the SGA in a negative light. I could tell even during our brief conversation that you would refuse to change your stance on this matter. I’m sorry for the wording of this post, however, I am truly disappointed that even after our conversation you would refuse to believe that the students (SGA) who put this event on were doing it for the benefit of the campus, not for some stupid, insignificant dinner beforehand, a dinner that in no way changed the nature of the event.
I’d also like to apologize on behalf of “Mr. Weasles”, while I appreciate the support I honestly don’t see how club basketball or OGL were involved in any way. Further, I have not entered into any unity agreements with OGL, nor have I been approached about one.
Horace, you raise a good point, the SFB was not involved with the planning of this event in anyway. My involvement so far has been to dispel Venkat’s concerns. While I am not a member of SGA and have been in adversarial roles with them on more than one occasion, I firmly believe they are not in the wrong, and that any issue with the time of the dinner was caused through timing issues with Huckabee.
Everyone seems to support Stolar, however I would like to say that PRISM fully supports Venkat. We have your back keep fighting the good fight!
Ok this is no longer funny. Seriously. Cut it out guys. I do not understand why everyone is on Mike’s side. I am going to be President of the United States one day and you think I care about everyone else. I’ve had enough. Consider this my final response. I am tired of using my allotted free time in prison to respond to stupidity, I have better things to do. This is it. Oh, and thanks PRISM.
As his father, I side with Mike Stolar because he is a good boy. He would never do anything wrong.
I was pointing out a problem at our school…please do not discount it by trying to discredit me.
Many of the comments here are written by various people using my name
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The SFB will always be corrupt. If anyone didn’t realize, they funded this event because the club supporting it had members on SFB. They will only help each other out. What a shock. SFB is the biggest disgrace to TCNJ and always will be. If more people stood up to their dictatorship maybe some things could change.
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