In order to get next year’s club budgets approved, the Undergraduate Finance Board is now requiring student leaders to provide their birth certificate, date of their first kiss, the cost of their third-grade math textbook, and was the kiss good, and did they use tongue, among other required responses.
“When I agreed to be the financial signatory for the Charcuterie Club, I never thought I would be required to share my seventh-grade drama and also my social security number just to get 100 bucks for meat and cheese,” said Sophomore Jack Cheddarton in an interview with The Rib.
Others expressed similar frustrations. “Honestly, I usually don’t mind filling out these forms,” said Jane Formstein, financial signatory of BLAB (Bureacracy Lovers @Brown). “But when they asked me to describe what I valued most in the world, and whether my parents’ insurance covered vision or dental, it felt kind of excessive.”
This year’s new budget approval process requires only one form. Yet, in order to obtain the necessary funding, student leaders are required to disclose both their club’s financial activity dating back three years, as well as a number of personal details including their Spotify Wrapped, the name and birth date of their first crush, and 500 words detailing whether they consider themselves more religious or spiritual and why.
The Homeric form is necessary, claims UFB, because “you never know when an IRS audit might come!” When asked about the relevance of the personal short answer portion of the form to the Internal Revenue Service, UFB responded, “Hey, you never know what those guys are looking for. It’s a holistic process! Just be yourself!”
With a fast-approaching deadline, student groups are scrambling to find the necessary details to complete their budget requests. “I just hope everyone remembers their PSAT scores,” Junior Eliza Quirk of The College Hill Independent told The Rib, “otherwise this campus will have to wave goodbye to print journalism!”