The Student Assembly Finance Commission is run for and by Cornell students. However, by the looks of its official website, requesting SAFC funding is a lot like navigating an administrative obstacle course. And while some sort of rigorous application process is certainly necessary to ensure that student funds are not wasted or misused, the current SAFC application is a little much.

Problems with the SAFC start with its rigid funding regulations. The SAFC covers a student group’s travel expenses during the semester, when travel may interfere with a student’s academic schedule. But student organizations cannot receive funding for trips scheduled in the summer or over winter break. Ironically, such trips are those least likely to conflict with a student’s curriculum.

Rigid funding regulations also tend to discourage innovation among the student body. The SAFC’s list of “eligible expenses” forces student-run organizations to conform their events to a restrictive SAFC standard. Groups find it routinely difficult to receive funding for “administrative” or “event” costs aside from those that are broadly applicable and highly generalized. Consequently, any group that decides to conduct its event in an innovative way, without consulting the SAFC’s pre-approved list of acceptable costs, is often left to fend for itself.

If nothing else, those students who are denied funding by the SAFC have a right to know where the student activity fee is going. But the Office of the Assemblies has yet to provide a comprehensive online link to SAFC funding allocation results. Students interested in those results can make a formal request, but the information should be easily accessible to those whose money is being spent.

Ultimately, the SAFC must confront problems of efficiency and fairness if it hopes to improve as an organization. Student groups are currently too confined by restrictive SAFC funding regulations, and students are too discouraged by a perceived lack of transparency in the funding process, for the SAFC to become a respected administrative entity. Undergraduates want to understand where their money is going, but more than that, they want an organization that recognizes the importance of flexibility and innovation. It’s time for the SAFC to become that kind of organization.