“I do not think they (SFC) are taking this seriously when they laugh and joke about our proposal.”
-Angela de Leon, dance team coach

The Student Association Senate Finance Committee (SFC) have deemed the Leading and Inspiring New and Knowledgeable Students (LINKS) mentoring center and the Panther Dance Team ineligible for segregated student fees.

Some members of the groups said SA Vice President Amanda Voigtlander did not allow some students to speak on behalf of their groups and centers by not requiring all students involved with the organizations to show up for the preliminary SFC hearing.

This is the second year in a row the Dance Team has been ruled ineligible for this type of funding. SFC said the dance team does not provide a critical service for the students, criteria the committee said is necessary for organizations to receive funding.

“I do not think they (SFC) are taking this seriously when they laugh and joke about our proposal,” said Angela de Leon, coach of the Dance Team. “SFC has shown its bias by how they wrote the bylaws.”

De Leon has been intensely involved with the dance team throughout her time at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. A member of the team during her five-year college career, De Leon served as captain for two of them. Last year, she became the team’s coach. De Leon talked about the endless fundraising the group does to keep afloat, but she said there is no way the dance team can continue on fundraising money alone.

De Leon argues that the Panther dance team is critical for the university in that it plays a key role in invoking school spirit. The team’s mission statement says it wants to begin a more serious sense of tradition and school pride among students in hopes that graduates will maintain closer ties to UWM.

SA Senator Alex Anderson stood up for the Panther Dance Team, voting against its ineligibility for funding and arguing that the group brings excitement and spirit to university events. SA Senators Brian Bomberek and Jon Weimer abstained from voting.

As for LINKS, SFC declared the mentoring center a duplicate of the Multicultural Student Center (MSC). However, LINKS began in 2001 while MSC has only been around since fall of 2005.

LINKS Office manager Sergio Piceno has worked at the center for three years and said he is passionate about the benefits of keeping the center open.

“We have mentors for anyone and for everything,” Piceno said. “Any problem a student has we can help, whether it is academic or not.”

Senators Anderson, Weimer and Casey Lura all voted to keep LINKS eligible for funding.

Representatives of LINKS said they will likely wait until the center receives an official letter of ineligibility from SFC before releasing a public statement. As of Oct. 9 at 3:30 p.m., the center had not received a letter, even though the LINKS’ director said he was told it would come by Friday afternoon.

The First Year Center was also ruled ineligible for segregated fees, but the center is already funded by the Academic Affairs Office.

There is a multi-tiered appeals process available to organizations found ineligible for segregated fee funding. First, organizations must go to the SFC appeals committee. If this fails, they may take the appeals to the senate. After that, organizations can take their complaint to Chancellor Carlos Santiago. The final step in the appeals process is the UW-System Board of Regents.

SFC representatives said they hope to have the committee’s budget finished and approved by Feb. 15. The budget will then be submitted to SA senate members at the first senate meeting of next year.

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