Pepsi money up for grabs for student groups
EMU Food Service Director John Costello is encouraging student groups to take advantage of $3,000 in unused funds from cola giant Pepsico Inc.
The funds were previously dedicated for the University College Bowl — where teams of players answered questions on topics ranging from history to science to current events — which has been discontinued for the past several years.
“It would be a shame if the student population didn’t take advantage of the opportunity,” Costello said.
Pepsico’s three-year contract with renewable options provides the University with beverage services, including more than 100 on-campus vending machines. Pepsico agreed in an August 2002 contract with the University to donate $3,500 in product support and scholarship funds, including $5,000 for the University Presidential Scholarship program and $25,000 for the Pepsi Scholarship.
“Pepsi will not just write the EMU Food Service department a check for $3,000,” Costello said. “It is important for student groups to submit written proposals to Pepsi through the EMU Food Service Office to access the unused funds.”
Costello said the Student Affiliates of the American Chemical Society is using a portion of the funds to organize
its April 23 Earth Day event, and the ASUO Women’s Center is putting the funds toward its second-annual Venus Festival running April 2-4.
“Getting the funds from Pepsi was incredibly easy,” said Briana Faris, ASUO Health and Women’s Advocate and organizer of the Venus Festival. “I made the request on Monday, and on Wednesday I received them. There were no promotional strings attached, and they were very easy to deal with.”
University Literary Society Executive Director Taraneh Foster said she was happy to receive an e-mail about the available Pepsi funds.
“We are coming out with our yearly journal, Timberline, in week seven, and fundraising is always such a challenge,” she said. “We were happy to hear about the available money without any strings attached to it.”

— Jeremy Berrington

ASUO may change rules for student group finances
The ASUO Student Senate referred proposed changes to student group accounting practices to its rules committee and released funds for the Hong Kong Student Association’s April 25 cultural night at a meeting Wednesday night.
Student Senate President Ben Strawn presented his proposal for a new accounting system for student groups that would help ensure the revenues from student group events match their expenditures, he said.
Under the current system, student groups spend money from multiple accounts, such as food and entertainment, to put on events.
“That makes it extremely hard to track what gets spent on a particular event,” Strawn said. “We need a way to consolidate all of that.”
The new system would set up activity codes to identify where different funds would go. In effect, it would divide the funds on the basis of events, rather than specific uses. This would make it easier for groups to report profits from events, Strawn said.
Also, the new language would cap event profits at 20 percent of the total event cost, with any excess rolling over into a surplus account the group couldn’t touch. The Senate wanted to remove the profit incentive for groups because the rules committee is currently drafting language that would allow student groups to charge students to enter events, Strawn said.
The proposed changes will be hammered out at the next rules committee meeting. The meeting date has not been set.
Suet Ping Chan, from the Hong Kong Student Association, appeared at Wednesday night’s meeting to ask the Senate for the release of $200 to allow the group to serve a traditional Chinese dinner at the its Hong Kong Night celebration.
Strawn told the group they must provide a free ticket to any student who requests one, in accordance with current ASUO Green Tape Notebook rules. The motion to release the $200 passed 14-0.

— Jared Paben