Fighting Hunger and the ‘Horns

The University of Alabama’s student government association spent more than $4,700 this month to send five of its leaders to Southern California to dish food at a homeless center in Pasadena, according to a report by The Crimson White, the student newspaper.

Steven Oliver, president of the organization, assured the newspaper that no student funds were used to send the student leaders to the Rose Bowl the next day to see the Crimson Tide defeat the Texas Longhorns 37-21 in college football’s national championship. 

The community-service event, at the Union Station Homeless Adult Services Center, was reportedly run in conjunction with student-government leaders at the University of Texas. A spokeswoman for Alabama’s student government acknowledged that the trip reimbursement violated student-government spending rules, because the student senate must approve expenditures over $1,000. But if that body had been in session when the trip was planned, she told the student paper, it “would have wholeheartedly supported the service efforts.”

UPDATE: Liam O’Rourke, president of the student government at the University of Texas at Austin, said on Friday that students from his university who participated in the service event had paid their own way. “No student-government funds were used,” he said. —Don Troop