Only a few weeks remain before the organizers of the National Student Campaign Against Hunger and Homelessness conference (NSCAHH) decide whether or not to accept Brandeis' bid to host. In a meeting later this week, Union President Ben Brandzel '03 said he expects to clarify and answer any questions that the administration still has. The conference will provide training session in which participants gain "activist skills," according to Brandzel.Vice President for Students and Enrollment Jean Eddy said there are still three or four questions concerning the conference that the Union needs to address.

"If all of our questions are answered and we feel we could handle it, we certainly wouldn't oppose (Brandeis hosting the conference)," Eddy said.

One of the concerns is that the approximately $7,200 the Union allocated is not enough to cover security, bussing, food, housing and custodial services for the conference.

"The proposal that the students have written suggests that the money they have received from the student senate will cover all those costs, but in the initial proposal that was sent from NSCAHH, it suggests the amount of money that is needed is more than the Senate has given," Eddy said.

Eddy said that at this time it would not be the University's first priority to pay any extra costs associated with the conference that the Union bid does not cover.

Eddy discussed other issues the administration has with the conference as well. "I was concerned with the idea of putting additional students in our residence halls and what that means as far as bathrooms, noise levels. My first job is all of you (the students); I want to protect your lifestyle and so we were asking very specific questions about that."

"How can we have 500 students to a campus without having everything else here stop?" she said.

"While this is a good cause ... a wonderful conference, I would be hard-pressed to take something away from our own students to host the conference here," she said.

Eddy said she was surprised the Senate allocated such a significant amount of money toward this conference. She said she routinely meets with student groups who cannot get funding for events. "I was taken back when I was told these funds were allocated for the conference," Eddy said.

Brandzel said he believes that in context this allocation was a wise one. Since it was allocated at the end of the year, he said the money would have simply gone into a rollover account and there was "no reason to believe that the money would be accessible to students to use (anyway)."

"I think it's a worthy expenditure," he said. "This conference should provide a meaningful educational experience to hundreds of Brandeis students."

Brandzel, however, said that if this year's bid does not succeed, the Student Union will not attempt to host the conference again.

At their last meeting last spring, the Union Senate allocated the remainder of its funds for a bid to host the NSCAHH on campus. Not one of the senators the Justice contacted this fall knew how much money was actually allocated, and Union Treasurer Josh Brandfon '05 was only able to give an estimate of about $6,200 after several months of inquiry. This, along with approximately $1,000 from the Executive Board, constituted Brandeis' bid to host the NSCAHH conference.

Neither the Senate's figures nor the executive's contribution is exact, according to Brandfon, because of the rollover questions still lingering and because it is still unclear how much money was left at the end of the year.

Since the bid for last year's conference failed, the Senate voted to reclaim the allocations. After Union Advocate Josh Sugarman '05 filed a University Judiciary case against the Senate for attempting to use last year's rollover money this year, and for trying to reclaim executive funds, the Senate voted to again reallocate the funds toward bidding to host the conference this year.