USG announces a new fund for student leaders

Edwin Saucedo

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The Undergraduate Student Government announced on Monday the establishment of an aid fund to support low-income student leaders on campus. The Positional Leadership Stipend is meant to help students who want to take on unpaid leadership positions without sacrificing income they may need to pay for college or other expenses.

According to USG Finance Director Edwin Saucedo, the idea for the stipend was first introduced when interviewing potential candidates for leadership positions in the USG Program Board. When one student was offered an unpaid assistant director position, rather than a paid director position, she had to decline because she would have to quit her job to have enough time to devote to the role. Saucedo developed the leadership stipend to help students in similar situations.

“USG directors and executive officers get a stipend for the work that they do, and we wanted to open the opportunity to be a leader up to students who don’t have that chance,” Saucedo said.

USG allocated $100,000 of rollover funds — which accumulated from unused programming funds over the past two years — to establish the stipend, which Saucedo and others are working to maintain for at least three years.

The application, which opened formally on Jan. 25, will ask students to explain how much money they need and why they need it. Although amounts granted will vary based on the position, Saucedo estimated that the stipend would generally pay students $10 for every hour they spent on their leadership position.

“We don’t want students sacrificing their activities so that they can pay for their basic needs, such as their food or their rent,” said Undergraduate Student Government President Rini Sampath.

Although the stipend is currently reserved for students who hold leadership roles on campus, Saucedo hopes to eventually expand it to include students who want to play club sports or participate in greek life, both activities that often involve expensive dues and fees.

Furthermore, Saucedo’s goal is ultimately to include middle-income students and students with special financial circumstances — even if they are not strictly low-income — among those eligible for the stipend.

The application for the positional leadership stipend will close on Feb. 5.