Cognizant of the delicate nature of funding social events where alcohol is likely to be served, UC members said that the current SIP Fund proposal is fundamentally different from the 2007 party grants fund.

“I think the entire intent has changed. It is [about] student-initiated events, not necessarily parties,” Khandelwal said, likening the proposed program to the grants offered by the Freshman Dean’s Office for freshman-initiated events.

George X. Huang ’12, a representative from Winthrop House who was heavily involved in developing the current proposal, said the SIP fund’s focus is to support medium-sized social events, which are rarely seen at Harvard.

“It’s centered around providing a new type of socialization on campus that alcohol may or may not be necessary for,” he said.

The proposal also incorporates new measures to address some of the concerns of House Masters raised last spring, such as mandating that the host of the party remain sober throughout the event.

Khandelwal said that House Masters were primarily worried about providing effective supervision to prevent underage drinking and damage to House property.

Last Friday, members of the UC met with Nelson to discuss the current proposal.

According to Khandelwal, Nelson continued to raise concerns about adequate supervision and insisted on oversight of the event by either resident tutors or Beverage Authorization Teams—graduate students trained to prevent underage drinking. Khandelwal said that both options are unfeasible due to financial constraints and staffing challenges.

Although the meeting resulted in a postponement of final decisions, Nelson said that she is keeping an open mind about the SIP Fund.

“[The UC has] taken comments from me and others, and they’ve really tried to shape their proposal accordingly,” Nelson said. “This is a good example of collaborative exchange.”

Ahmed N. Mabruk contributed to the reporting for this story.

—Staff writer Melody Y. Hu can be reached at melodyhu@fas.harvard.edu

—Staff writer Naveen N. Srivatsa can be reached at srivatsa@fas.harvard.edu