What he fails to mention is that last semester the Council awarded a grant to the Alliance for Life. In the past, the Council has also funded Peninsula and AALARM, Understandably, liberal-minded students were upset about this. However, by maintaining its content-neutral stance, the Finance Committee supports the dissemination of a wide variety of views on campus.

Many established groups seeking funding for large events are often disappointed that they do not receive as much funding as they would like and suggest that the age criterion be eliminated. However, by doing so, we would shortchange the younger groups who are more vulnerable without funding. It is important to keep in mind that the older and larger groups were also at one time young and small. We simply owe it to the young groups to give them a fair chance to survive and succeed.

Finally, criticism has been levelled at the committee from within as well as outside of the Council to be more consistent in its recommendations. If one event appears on the surface to be similar to another one, they should receive the same funding, these critics say. But committee members are humans and not robots and should be free to be flexible in the face of the amazing diversity of requests for funding that it receives--no request exactly like any other.

Generally, the Finance, Committee will ask certain basic questions about any grant request. How many Harvard students will it benefit? Does it fill a void in the community? How badly does the group need our support? What potential impact does it have on the Harvard community? With a budget of $83,000 but requests typically exceeding $300,000, these are the tough questions that have to be asked, and cuts necessarily have to be made.

The Finance Committee spends upward of 30 hours in debate alone on grant requests; there is quality control throughout the process. In the end, the committee will not satisfy every group. But the process is fair and the guidelines used are part of the process for good reasons.

Hopefully, students will acquaint themselves with the process even further by going to speak to their representatives in the U.C. office in Canaday B or calling Finance Committee members.

Grant applications for the spring semester can be picked up in the office and are due this Friday, February 18. By learning about the grants process, I am convinced that students will have a greater appreciation for how their money is being put to use.

Jay Kim is chair of the U.C. Finance Committee.