Corrections appended. See bottom.

Last week’s terrifyingly long Undergraduate Council (UC) general meeting rehashed an all–too-familiar—and all-too-important—issue: funding for student groups. The UC, in a bold move, ignored the recommendation of its Finance Committee (FiCom) and awarded $2,000 to the Mission Hill After School Program, a tutoring and mentoring outreach group affiliated with the Phillips Brooks House Association (PBHA). The extended debate highlighted the need for clear, consistent, and well-publicized standards for funding of student groups.

Mission Hill, which operates on a budget of approximately $4,000 per year, uses roughly half of its money to cover the cost of transportation between Harvard and public schools in Roxbury. The program is forced to seek UC funding in large part because of its affiliation with PBHA, which precludes it from many federal and state grants designated for other PBHA programs. FiCom’s unexpected denial of funds left the program with no alternate source of money, forcing it to appeal to the UC at last week’s general meeting.

FiCom voted against the critical $2,500 grant it had given in previous years because of its own unwritten rules about funding transportation costs, which it had not previously applied to Mission Hill’s grants. In an e-mail to The Crimson, FiCom chair Lori M. Adelman ’08 explained that Mission Hill’s previous funding was due to “extraneous circumstances with past miscommunication between UC leadership and Mission Hill leadership.” While FiCom’s decision may have been consistent with its unpublished guidelines, the committee’s past record of funding undoubtedly caused confusion for Mission Hill’s leaders.

The UC’s final decision to fund Mission Hill certainly alleviated the group’s monetary crisis, but the ad hoc grant decision set an unfortunate precedent. Many student organizations had been operating under the assumption that the UC does not fund transportation costs, yet the UC’s website—as well as the UC’s communications with certain clubs—has relayed information to the contrary. Ultimately, its erratic application of vague rules amounts to a value judgment of the relative merit of organizations. More importantly, the guidelines’ uneven application is a disservice to groups who would have otherwise applied to the UC for transportation grants had they known such money was available.

The FiCom website, which contained information contradictory to its unwritten rules, did nothing to help the situation. Much of the confusion surrounding transportation and other funding could have been easily alleviated had FiCom and the UC taken the time and initiative to update, publicize, and adhere to guidelines on its site. FiCom, to its credit, updated its website yesterday with its current guidelines, but it must now publicize these new guidelines and apply them consistently.

The Mission Hill incident simply demonstrated that ad hoc awards and human judgment play too large a role in the grants process. We recognize that evaluation of grant applications will undoubtedly require some human element, but such subjectivity ought to be minimized in the name of fairness. Such value judgments should only play a part in the development of these rules, which should consider, among other factors, the relative necessity of funding to the particular group in question.

As the primary source of funding for many student groups on campus, the UC cannot afford to neglect the current problems in its grant process. Its lack of a streamlined and equitable funding scheme smacks of the very inefficiency for which the UC is so often criticized. Updating the grant guidelines on its website was a good first step, but now FiCom must take the time to notify all student group leaders of the new guidelines and apply them in the most consistent and fair manner possible.

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CORRECTION: The March 13 editorial, "For Fair Funding," incorrectly stated that the annual budget of the Mission Hill After School Program is $4,000. In fact, the program's annual budget is approximately $10,000.

CORRECTION: The same editorial also improperly used the term "Mission Hill" to refer to the Mission Hill After School Program. In fact, Mission Hill is the name of the neighborhood that the after-school program servers.