Students for Real Advocacy (SRA) voted unanimously to dissolve and transfer about $1,500 in remaining funds to the University Park Undergraduate Association (UPUA).
Galen Foulke, the former Undergraduate Student Government (USG) president who created SRA to examine the effectiveness of student government, made the movement for its dissolution. He was unavailable for comment.
SRA was created nine months ago through special permission from Student Affairs, and $3,000 was anonymously donated.
"The biggest thing we worked on was holding the referendums, which asked, 'Do you think USG is effective? Is UPUA better?' " Andrew Reeve, SRA president, said.
"We organized those votes and some of our members campaigned for certain responses," Reeve added.
One of SRA's undertakings was the February referendum in which 85 percent of the 3,992 people who voted opted for UPUA to be the official student voice.
"We accomplished what we set out to accomplish," Ashley Hill, SRA member, said. "UPUA is in place and there is nothing left for us to do."
Nick Stathes, USG president, said he thinks SRA's mission to accurately examine student representation is far from complete.
"I don't think they garnered true student opinion," he said. "If they had, maybe more than 2,600 people would have voted in the election. They sided with the administration and argued that undergraduates should be able to advocate and not make real decisions. That idea is laughed at throughout the Big Ten."
Another purpose of SRA was to fund the UPUA election -- purchasing stamps for fliers, buying T-shirts and paying for printing and the party in Alumni Hall for the election result announcement.
"If you go back in history and look at the elections budgets, each year they had to pay to get the votes counted," Reeve said. "With the recent UPUA election, our costs were zero in terms of voting. Student Affairs designed a new program to be used by UPUA. No one got paid by with any of that donation money."
Jay Chamberlin, UPUA president, said the money will be put to good use as UPUA determines its financial situation.
UPUA officially acquired an Associated Student Activities bank account Monday.
"That money will be the first money in our account," Chamberlin said. "We are currently exploring a variety of options on where we will get funding. I can't comment on that until I can confirm where that money will come from."
Chamberlin said he is working on compiling a two-level budget to suggest a minimum and maximum amount of money needed to run UPUA.
Chamberlin said he will discuss with Felicia McGinty, UPUA adviser, the steps necessary to acquire those funds. A month after the election, as UPUA gets its act together, Hill said the organization will be fine running on its own without help from SRA.
"Any of us are willing to help them if they need assistance," she said. "But it wouldn't really be my place to advise them. They are the new leaders now."
