When I transferred to Brown last fall, the first thing I did was join Brown Motion Pictures. By spring, I was producing one of the organization’s short films, working with RISD cinematographers and directors with creative visions I could never dream of. But right at the center of this extracurricular adventure, it turned out, was my credit card.
Like many Brown student organizations, BMP subsists on funding administered through Brown’s student-group financial system. Although there are several methods for clubs to make purchases, the reimbursement option is the most practical. If a club pays for a vendor, service or outside guest, or orders goods with enough advance notice for a Student Activities Office staff member to process the payment, Brown can foot the bill directly. But these payment methods don’t work for day-to-day expenses. Students often purchase club items themselves out of convenience and under a time crunch, and they submit their receipts for SAO reimbursement after the fact.
Brown’s website touts that student groups foster a diverse community where all Undergraduate Council of Students and Graduate Student Council recognized organizations “must be open to all students regardless of their race, color, religion…national or ethnic origin, disability, veteran status…or caste.” But asking students to front club expenses assumes every club has members with enough disposable income to pay the bill. Students who can’t afford to advance the money may have to decline responsibilities or rely on wealthier members, while students seeking reimbursement face a convoluted payment structure. As it stands, SAO’s reimbursement structure creates both financial and logistical barriers to participation.
Even for students who can afford to front the money, the reimbursement process itself presents a bureaucratic mess, and students have no real access to track their pending reimbursements. Brown requires reimbursement requests to be submitted through a club’s authorized Financial Signatory — a dedicated member who manages purchases and must submit detailed information to SAO. Transaction documentation and purchase proof are not unreasonable demands, but they create a long chain between making a purchase and getting your money back. This leaves plenty of places for an expense to sit, get missed or require another email asking where it went. Brown’s public reimbursement instructions do not state an expected processing timeline for general student reimbursements.
None of this means Brown should hand every club a pile of cash and hope for the best. Brown already has a purchasing card system where financial signatories can request orders in advance and wait for an SAO staff member to process them. Brown could make University-paid purchasing easier though for the kinds of normal expenses student groups make every day by pre-approving organizations’ budgets at the beginning of the semester and allowing them to directly access their designated funds on a purchasing card.
Stanford already does this. Student organizations can submit a detailed expense plan at the beginning of the semester, receive virtual Visa purchasing cards tied to their approved funding and use them directly. For expenses made on the card, receipts, expense descriptions and funding information are due within three days — this information verifies that the purchase follows the club’s approved expense plan. Since these transactions enter Stanford’s financial system directly, the university can see the charge itself and verify the money was properly spent and reported.
If a Brown club’s financial signatory fails to submit proper reimbursement information on behalf of a club member, there is little the spender, who lacks access to the reimbursement process, can do about it, especially after the deadline for submitting the reimbursement request has passed. At Princeton, students submit their own reimbursement expenses rather than relying on another club member, meaning there is one less place for the process to break down. Brown should create a student-accessible portal showing reimbursement status, documentation requests and where to turn for help. The school already tracks these transactions internally — students should not have to reconstruct that process through an email chain, or feel stress and uncertainty around when they might receive their money.
SAO’s mission statement describes co-curricular involvement as a key part of Brown’s educational mission. The passion students pour into their organizations — the events they organize, performances they create, communities they build and completely ridiculous problems they solve along the way — is part of what makes Brown special. The financial system supporting that work should function just as well for students who can afford to front club expenses as for those who can’t. Putting students’ passion into practice shouldn’t require them to temporarily finance their organizations.
Annabel Hilzenrath ’28 can be reached at annabel_hilzenrath@brown.edu. Please send responses to this column to letters@browndailyherald.com and other opinions to opinions@browndailyherald.edu.
