The Political Science Student Association to Become Financially Independent from ASFA

PSSA and ASFA Move on From Last Year’s Attempted Separation

NewsVince Morello — Published September 13, 2017

“I feel the PSSA is not ready yet to be its own entity so [we’re] just working with ASFA,” Farrah-Lilia Kerkadi, the PSSA’s president said.

Last year, the PSSA campaigned to leave ASFA on the grounds that there were many conflicting by-laws between the two groups, mainly regarding the PSSA’s budget, signing authority (those who have the power to sign off on expenses), and elections. Last year’s PSSA’s executive team also said that the relationship between them and ASFA was troubling.

“It’s reached a breaking point where ASFA and PSSA cannot continue,” Nora Molina, the former PSSA president said in an interview with The Link in January 2017.

Kerkadi admits that ASFA’s by-laws do need to be rewritten, but at the moment there is no urgency to change them because they aren’t hurting the PSSA that much.

Julia Sutera-Sardo, ASFA’s interim president said that the current plans are to rewrite ASFA’s by-laws, and get them approved in the upcoming by-elections.

“[Kerkadi] and I had some meetings in the summer time where we just discussed our priorities for the year, and I’m really looking forward to working with PSSA,” Sutera-Sardo said. “[PSSA’s] executive [team] seems on board to collaborate and a lot of our ideas are in the same place.”

The PSSA receives a fee levy of $1.60 per credit from all undergraduates with a major or minor in political science or human rights. This year, their estimated budget is $90,000 according to Kerkadi.

While they are entitled to receiving money from ASFA, Kerkadi said that they submitted a budget for $0 because she’d rather let ASFA’s other member associations get better funding.

This will be the second year that the PSSA is financially independent from ASFA because last year, they failed to submit their budget on time, thus forfeiting any money ASFA would have given them.