[387] in UA Exec
Re: Student Faculty Dinners
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Ankit J Gordhandas)
Wed Apr 28 17:38:32 2010
Date: Wed, 28 Apr 2010 17:38:27 -0400 (EDT)
From: Ankit J Gordhandas <ankitg@MIT.EDU>
To: David Chang <dchang@MIT.EDU>
cc: Everson Auguste <evedizzy@MIT.EDU>, Grant A Robinson <grantrob@MIT.EDU>,
Vrajesh Modi and Sammi Wyman <wedothings@MIT.EDU>,
Alexander W Dehnert <adehnert@MIT.EDU>,
scep chairs <ua-scep-chairs@MIT.EDU>, ua-treasurer@MIT.EDU,
Quentin Smith <quentin@MIT.EDU>, ua-exec@MIT.EDU
In-Reply-To: <70CD6FB6-3404-4673-B663-C5D2E59FE02E@mit.edu>
I like this.
On Wed, 28 Apr 2010, David Chang wrote:
> Bennie suggests that those who have emailed us up till now, we give $20 per
> person. If we need to pull from senate or exec discretionary, so be it. Also,
> sao accounts are allowed to go negative, so we'll be okay.
>
> Estimated cost: ~$1000 5 people, 10 groups
>
> Grant and Everson. You can email out to those who have emailed us now. I'm
> comfortable moving forward with this. I suppose we will have to create the
> confirmation emails by hand. just ask them who, usernames etc and make up the
> email form.
>
> dc
>
> On Apr 28, 2010, at 12:06 AM, David Chang wrote:
>
>> Grant and Everson,
>>
>> Now that we have Alex onboard, as soon as Vrajesh or Sammi say okay, let
>> the 5-10 groups that have emailed us personally to let them know that we
>> thank them for their interest, let them know that we have allocated all the
>> funds. However, since they have already set up a dinner with their
>> professor, we will happily subsidize the cost of their professor's meal, up
>> to $25, in hopes that we can still makes these hard worked plans continue.
>>
>> Expected cost: <500 seems pretty conservative. Thats an additional 20
>> groups, which I very much doubt. No real harm done to next year's budget.
>>
>> On Apr 27, 2010, at 11:52 PM, Alexander W Dehnert wrote:
>>
>>> On Tue, 27 Apr 2010, David Chang wrote:
>>>> I'd like to move forward with the following, if possible:
>>>>
>>> [...]
>>>
>>>> -Offer to subsidize their professors meal. ie $25 per group.
>>> [...]
>>>>
>>>> I do recognize that we do need to follow our allotted budget and plan to
>>>> be fiscally responsible by taking from next years budget. Once this term
>>>> has finished, I'd also be looking to update Senate on how we handled this
>>>> year as well as better predictions and budget requests if our predictions
>>>> warrant.
>>>
>>> Honestly, the way I'd love to handle this is "build up a decent sized
>>> reserve (or get permission to borrow against next year)", set some vaguely
>>> reasonable overallocation amount, and be okay with screwing up by ~$2K a
>>> year as long as we average $0 over the long haul.
>>>
>>>>
>>>> On the other hand, Student Faculty Dinners is a very positive program in
>>>> the eyes of both professors and students and I'l like to encourage
>>>> student participation by not leaving a bad taste in their mouths.
>>>>
>>>> It gives them a palatable alternative, since many have already asked
>>>> their professors and backing out would be most unprofessional. Offering
>>>> to pay for the professors meal allows students to continue with their
>>>> plans without having it be a big financial drain as $20-25 per person
>>>> isn't an unreasonable normal outing for students.
>>>>
>>>> While unscientific, we can also figure out if students want a free meal
>>>> or to actually go talk with professors.
>>>>
>>>> I'm curious about the technical feasibility and budgetary issues of such
>>>> a plan
>>>> - In terms of reimbursement, how much manual labor is involved? How much
>>>> manpower would SCEP need to provide to make this reasonable?
>>>
>>> This should be fine. When people email, send them some email to print out
>>> and attach to their receipt. I can deal from there.
>>>
>>>> - In terms of budget, since we get next years funding in the summer, is
>>>> there an issue?
>>>
>>> *shrug* I think going over budget a bit is fine. I bet the people who gave
>>> us the money won't notice if we went into debt (though ping Jed Wartman or
>>> somebody else in SAO (normally I'd say Kerri, but I think she's away this
>>> week) and seeing if we can borrow a little against the program's future
>>> would be a good plan).
>>>
>>> ~~Alex
>>>>
>>>> David Chang
>>
>
