By Rafal Rogoza —
SGO Executive Board donation of $27,500 to India study abroad trip in mid September raises conflict of interest concerns among Student Council members as two Executive Board members are attending the trip. The donation also includes a previously undisclosed scholarship award to attending students.
“The selection process by which applicants were chosen is of the greatest concern to me and many others,” said Sean Wilson, 22, criminal justice major and President of Free Thinkers Society from Jersey City. “I brought up the supposition of this being a moral question in part due to the fact that two members of the e-board are in attendance for this trip, including the son of VP of Student Affairs Dr. Melendez, furthermore, other qualified persons had higher GPA’s and a better benefit of attending this trip.”
According to Joanne Bruno, VP of Academic Affairs, the selection process was fair and objective as the 17 students selected all received high approval scores from the selection committee. All five SGO Executive Board members applied for the trip with two being selected based on the selection committee’s evaluation, a total of 43 students applied.
Vice President Bruno referred all additional inquiries about conflict of interest to the Student Government Organization. “It’s my understanding of SGO that they have their own policies that control a conflict of interest situation.”
“We all feel, at the end of the, day we’re all students. We all applied [and] two got in. The issue is students are upset we donated to the trip, but we extended the deadline and lowered the cost,” answered Mack Do, SGO VP of Activities when asked about the conflict of interest accusations.
“We donated $27,500 to the India trip and we did that because we knew we had money in the contingency fund,” said Aurora Estevez, SGO VP of Finance.
According to Estevez, the decision was made in part to lower costs of the trip for students and to allow more students to attend.
“If I can’t afford school and I’m struggling to pay for my kid’s diapers I’m not going to apply for a trip that’s $1,000,” said Estevez.
The donation lowered the student cost from $1,000 to $500 and increased the number of students attending the trip from 10 to 17, according to Dr. Melendez VP of Student Affairs.
However, a review of the amount donated to the trip determined that only $20,000 was transferred.
When asked how the remaining $7,500 was going to be spent Melendez responded that the money will be reimbursed to the students attending the trip after they return.
“The foundation will use the money to reimburse the students as a scholarship for representing the University in India,” said Melendez.
When asked why during the application process the student body wasn’t informed that a scholarship award was included in the trip Melendez answered, “It was my judgment not to say that money was guaranteed. I didn’t feel comfortable saying that at the time, the fact is the money is not here. SGO may decide we’ll leave it at $20,000.”
According to Estevez, the money donated came from the Executive Board’s budget and did not need the Student Council’s vote of approval.
“We needed to make that decision right away so we took it from our e-board budget,” said Estevez who mentioned that the Executive Board did not have time to ask the Student Council to vote on the donation because the application deadline for the trip was the day of the first Student Council meeting.
The large sum donated did force the Executive Board to ask the Student Council for an addition $30,000 to be added to their budget.
“These inquiries of conflict of interest became a real problem after most SGO members had realized that we had been bamboozled by the e-board when they had sent a vote through council for a $30,000 bail out; as a result, we began to ask more questions about earlier handlings as well as future ones too,” said Wilson.
“We’re student leaders so we’re going to be scrutinized anyway, such accusations are unfair because we’re students as well,” said Do.
