College/Year: Calhoun ’03

Hometown: Spokane, Wash.

Major: political science

Tony Cotto said he and his friends gripe about the Undergraduate Organizations Funding Committee all the time.

“It seems like every time I talk to someone involved in a student organization, they’re griping about funds,” he said.

Cotto said as UOFC chair he would work closely with all student groups.

“Communication needs to be better between groups,” Cotto said. “The money is there. It’s just a matter of students knowing how to get to it.”

As UOFC chair, Cotto would hold a presentation in the beginning of the academic year to help groups understand the process of applying for funding, he said.

“Nobody ever alerted me as to what the UOFC guidelines were,” Cotto said.

He said his experience applying for UOFC funds would help him chair the committee.

Cotto is the treasurer of the Calhoun College Council and of Despierta Boricua, Yale’s Puerto Rican student organization, as well as a member of the Youth Reading Corps and the Junior Justice League.

Cotto’s other priority will be to raise the amount Yale allots to each group, currently capped at $550, by $50 or $100.

“For crying out loud, the endowment gave a 41 percent yield [last fiscal year],” he said. “Fifty more dollars would allow a group to hold one more social activity to get more students involved.”

— Louise Story