Whereas funds from a council endowment plan would have been distributed by the council itself, Lewis' plan will shift control of the additional funds to a committee made up of both council members and administrators and chaired by Epps and Student Activities Coordinator Susan Cooke.

After consideration of Lewis' proposal, Stewart agreed to put her idea of a private council endowment on hold.

Instead, Stewart says she will try to supplement the additional funds by forming an endowment based on money donated by former council members, since University permission is not required to solicit gifts from a group's own alumni.

No Strings Attached?

Although Lewis' plan will make the University a bigger player in the distribution of group funds, Stewart says she is not concerned that the council will lose autonomy.

She says the Lewis plan starts where the council leaves off, funding groups based on merit rather than need.

Since Lewis' proposal will not take any money away from the council, it will not diminish the council's ability to fund groups as it sees fit, she says.

And, according to Stewart, even if the Lewis plan did diminish autonomy, the additional funding to student groups would be worth the price.

But though Stewart praises Lewis' grant plan, total disbursements for extracurriculars--even with the new funds--will still be well under the $300,000 which Stewart says student groups need.

Nevertheless, according to Stewart, Lewis' plan has the advantage of benefiting student groups immediately, unlike an endowment plan which might have taken many years before it paid off at a similar level.

"We knew it would take several years before the money started pouring in, so students now would suffer in those years when we were getting the endowment started," she says.

Stewart predicts that the new grants committeewill be flooded with applications for funding nextfall, and hopes that it will respond by boostinggrant funds even more.

Although the new grants are unlikely to meetevery group's need, student leaders say they arepleased by the increase in funding.

"We were really, really excited to find outabout this option," Wetzler says. "There are sofew outlets for teams like ours and we're hopingthat this is a source of funding we can tap into."

But while praising the proposal, some studentssay it is long overdue.

"Given Harvard's resources, it's verysurprising how little has been given to studentgroups," Onie says.