The Carleton Student Association (CSA) went before the Sharks of ABC’s reality TV show “Shark Tank” with their proposal for this year’s spring allocation. Many students wonder where the funding for spring allocations comes from, but this is the first instance of CSA having a solid and transparent proposal for where they plan to get the money.
A Carletonian investigation into the nature of the spring allocation funding revealed that the “activity fee” that CSA has previously claimed funds the spring allocations does not actually do so. A CSA insider, who wished to remain anonymous, stated the shocking truth: The activity fee is being carefully fed to squirrels. “The fund is put into a tree, the only safe place on campus,” said the source. “Unfortunately, the squirrels don’t seem to respect our right to not have our money eaten.”
Because of this, CSA has to request money from the sharks. The CSA representative opened the meeting by greeting the sharks and describing what CSA actually does, which took approximately fifteen seconds. “Sharks,” the representative said. “Do we have a proposal for you. You give us $1,000,000 in cash, and in exchange, we give you exclusive advertising rights on the back of our neon yellow shirts.”
The sharks seemed shockingly supportive of the proposal, but they still had several questions. Mark Cuban questioned whether CSA could actually keep the money. “You have a source of income,” said Cuban. “I’m not convinced that if we give it to you, it won’t be eaten by squirrels.”
The CSA representative responded to Cuban’s concerns with what many are calling impeccable logic. “We constantly overallocate,” said the representative. “So, if we don’t have any leftover money, how can the squirrels eat it? It’s called spending money to make money. And I’m sure individual clubs can find other places to hide their money. Maybe bushes.”
Unfortunately, this response wasn’t enough to convince Cuban, who left the stage, saying, “I’m out. I’m so out. Neon yellow shirt or no neon yellow shirt, I’m just sooooo out.”
Barbara Corcoran seemed far more interested in the proposal than Cuban. Corcoran, who is known as the only shark that doesn’t hate squirrels, asked the representative about the return on the investment. “What’s your expected profit?” asked Corcoran enthusiastically. “I don’t want to spend this kind of money if there’s no profit.”
The CSA representative responded to Corcoran’s concerns. “That’s the neat part. We don’t have one. The real profit is the friends we make along the way.” Corcoran refused to respond, looking very disappointed in the response, and sat in silence for the rest of the meeting.
Part of the request to the sharks is a request for a squirrel-proof safe for all of the money collected from the activity fee every year. “Sure, we feed the squirrels money, it seems like a good use of our mone…I mean the CSA money,” said the representative to the crowd of puzzled sharks. “But we don’t want the squirrels getting greedy. We can’t afford for them to have snacks whenever they want. If they want snacks, they can request it from the Common Meal Fund like all the organizations on campus.”
Many students were happy that CSA had to make a request to “Shark Tank.” Thomas Cruz, the grand poobah of the Carleton Scientology Association, thinks that this really makes the process come full circle. “We have to propose things to CSA, so why doesn’t CSA have to propose their budget to other people?”
Cruz, who made a splash at the last Carleton Scientology Association meeting by jumping on a couch to emphasize all the budget requests that have been sent to the Carleton Scientology Association instead of the Carleton Student Association, continued by stating, “CSA has no checks and balances. Who better to check their power than a bunch of billionaires?”
By the end of the meeting the sharks didn’t find the proposal enticing enough to offer their money to CSA, so the CSA representative walked away with no offer. CSA was told that they’d be welcome to come back and make a deal with the sharks at a later date by asking for a “smaller budget.”
