Carousel highlights potential student leaders

"Students who are taking these leadership positions often have to sacrifice time that they would have spent at a student job," Lenahan explained. "So [this Fall], they asked for student representatives from all the different positions to sit on a committee [to] decide how the money would be dispensed."

Stipends were issued in late January this year. In coming days, the SLS committee will send a notifiation letter about the payment. Emma Weinstein Levey '12, one of the two proposers of the SLS initiative and member of its ad hoc committee, stated, "The eventual goal of the SLS initiative is to institutionalize compensation for student leaders, including those that are not on financial aid. In addition to exploring possibilities for institutional support, this semester the SLS committee will again be submitting an initiative to the student body and senate for ballot approval."

This initiative will directly affect those students applying for a leadership position this year. Some question remains whether or not the stipend program will continue for the next generation of student leaders. Lenahan stated, "We have a set amount of money for stipends, but it may or may not continue down the line. So it is not clear if this will just work for five years or if there's a possibility to invest it and [make it] a growing pot so that we can continue to compensate students."

"We hope to offer another stipend to student leaders next year," Weinstein Levey said, "but that really depends on outside support and the success of the committee's work this semester."

More information on the SLS committee and the upcoming initiative will be available in next week's publication