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PAGE 15
THE FATE OF DEBATE
TU's Speech and Debate
Team faces budget cuts
RACHAEL SANDERS
Assistant News Ed
Due to of uncertain funding, the Speech and
Debate Team will soon be seeing a number of changes
in their group.
Budget cuts from the University System of Maryland
have caused the University to cut funding for the
speech division of the Speech and Debate Team this
semester.
There has been a funding hold
placed on the speech division of the
team for the next two years.
Whether or not the debate side
of the team will continue to receive
University funding will not be decid¬
ed until August.
News of these cuts reached
Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley,
who was quoted in The Baltimore
Sun saying, "I don’t think any president worth their
salt would allow a debate club to become a casualty of
the fiscal restraint we all have to exercise."
President Robert Caret’s office provided a response
to the Governor's comment.
"We agree with the Governor that this campus
group should be supported and that’s why we are
looking for permanent budget solutions for the
next academic year as the team is funded from
multiple sources," Marina Cooper, assistant to the
president for external relations and communica¬
tion, said in an e-mail.
In the past, the Speech and Debate Team's budget
was around $200,000, according to University provost
Marcia Welsh. This included about $115,000 in schol¬
arships provided to the members of the team and an
average of $70,000 in traveling and other expenses.
Speech and Debate Team president Erika Waltham
said this was not the first cut the team has received.
‘We’ve faced a lot of cuts in the last couple semes¬
ters," Waltham said. "Last year we faced a cut of 30
percent, and then in the fall we faced another cut,
which was a retroactive cut that went all the way
across the university’s travel budget."
Welsh described this deficit as
an "unintended consequence" of
the budget cuts.
"We started working immedi¬
ately to reinstate that amount
in those budgets that impacted
student groups funded from the
Office of the Provost," Welsh
said. We did reinstate $25,000 to
the Debate Team's budget before
the article appeared in the Sun,
which gave them an operating budget of $34,880 for
the year, plus the [Student Government Association]
funds.”
According to SGA president Jon Graf, the Speech
and Debate Team is currently classified as a “spon¬
sored activity" rather than a student group, because of
the academic and scholarship aspect of the club. This
See DEBATE, page 8
Above, left to right: senior Adam Jackson, senior
Deverick Murray and junior Ben Morgan.
Unfortunately the
budget situation is not
good, and it’s getting
worse ...
JON GRAF
SGA President
SGA treasurer Murphy
faces impeachment
RACHEL FAUBER
Editor in chief
The Student Government Association may face an abrupt change of
leadership after vice president Ben Steinberg filed a bill of charges to
impeach treasurer Ryan Murphy on Thursday, Jan. 21.
Steinberg cited "neglect of duty” as the primary reason for the charges.
The impeachment trial is scheduled for Tuesday, Jan. 26.
"Throughout the semester there were various cases such as not
responding to things as simple as budget change requests or an e-mail
with concerns in a timely manner," Steinberg said.
The SGA constitution states that neglect of duty applies to cases in
which an official is in gross dereliction of their legislative duty or failed
to execute a specific duty to the best of his or her ability.
The executive board approached Murphy during finals week of the Fall
2009 semester about a possible impeachment trial.
"They brought concerns to my attention," Murphy said. "At the time,
90 percent [of the concerns] were new issues that I didn’t know about.”
The executive board met every week of fall semester, according to SGA
president Jon Graf.
We do our thing just like other administrative boards that meet every
week. We have regular ways of checking on everyone in the organization
to make sure they’re doing what the need to do,” Graf said.
Murphy has voiced concerns regarding how the executive board
handled the impeachment process and believes some of the charges are
politically based. He and chief of staff Tierra Fields are the only executive
See SGA, page 8
