A push to obtain funding for an upcoming service trip prompted the Marquette Student Government Senate to enter a closed executive session Thursday night to discuss whether to allocate the funds.

After a measure to provide emergency funding for a fall break service trip to New Orleans failed in the MUSG Budget Committee earlier in the week, College of Arts & Sciences senior Joe Gietl requested that the senate reconsider the declined funding.

"We will be going regardless," Gietl said at the meeting. The trip, sponsored by the Lutheran Student Union, JUSTICE and Teachers for Social Justice, will leave Wednesday and return Monday.

Gietl compared the trip to the Marquette Action Program, which coordinates service trips during spring break, but said it is not affiliated with the organization. Because it is so similar, the event better aligns with the Student Organization Allocation funding guidelines than those of the reserve fund, according to Andrew Doyle, financial vice president of MUSG and a senior in the College of Business Administration.

Later in the meeting, the senators voted to move into a closed executive session to further discuss the matter.

"We needed to be honest and frank with each other about an ongoing issue," Doyle said.

Senators could not comment on the executive session.

The SOA committee approved the funding as an extension of the period after a special meeting Friday afternoon.

"The only sticky point was that it was past the deadline and not covered by the period. We historically do not grant any exception for that," Doyle said.

He said the trip was "well-organized," collaborative and in line with the university mission, which prompted the extra discussion of the emergency funding.

The "extraordinary circumstances" placed the senate in a tight position, according to Doyle.

"Everyone has the same chance at our limited budget. It needs to be distributed in the best way possible," Doyle said. "Their situation in the Gulf Coast certainly warrants an exception (to the deadline policy)."

The trip will cost each of the 24 participants $60, and they have also received donations of tools and raingear from the Office of Student Development and Repairers of the Breach, Gietl said.

"I think it's wonderful that MUSG funded the trip because we get to go down and help, but more importantly we get to provide a way for displaced students to see the damage to their home state," said Kerida O'Reilly, a freshman in the College of Health Sciences who will travel to New Orleans on Wednesday.

Also at the meeting, President Alex Hermanny and Executive Vice President Elizabeth Feste discussed the possibility of clarifying election and financial policies throughout the year.

"It's not so much structural issues as much as it is internally making the process more efficient," said Feste, a senior in the College of Arts & Sciences.

Feste said it is necessary to "clean up the language" so candidates and student organizations can better understand their guidelines.

"It would be something to benefit students for years to come because it affects so many groups on campus," said Hermanny, also an Arts & Sciences senior.

This article was published in The Marquette Tribune on October 18, 2005.