The Associated Students voted to allocate more than $12,000 at Wednesday’s finance committee meeting.

The committee voted 2-0 to allocate $500 to Kristen Johnson’s, a student from the Geography Department, who requested $600 to pay for a trip to Belize. Johnson asked for $100 for airfare, $500 for ground transportation and other miscellaneous items.

“It is a required course and part of my senior thesis,” Johnson said. “I already have some people helping, but every little bit helps.”

Johnson is part of a group of Geography 404 students who are taking a field study course trip to Belize in January 2008. The students will be studying tourism and ecotourism at the University of Belize. While there, students will spend time in Belize City, a few nights at a Jaguar preserve and some time on the islands surrounding Belize.

Johnson said she’d be studying sustainable tourism. Johnson plans to present a poster and a presentation on her research at the California Geographical Society Conference at CSU Chico next semester.

The committee voted 2-0 to grant Poleta Minasian $300 to help with her request.

Minasian, president of the Golden Key International Honors Society chapter at CSUN, originally requested $5,120 dollars to help with her trip to be honored at the International Language Forum.

Minasian said “I can’t pay for the whole thing. I’ve tried to ask others to help, but I haven’t been really lucky with that.”

Five hundred dollars was requested for the deposit for the chapter membership fee. The request was also for $2,000 for the second payment and $2,620 for the final payment. The request was also for $2,500 for miscellaneous items, including airfare for Minasian’s flight from New York to Europe.

The Golden Key International Honor Society is an organization that recognizes students worldwide who show academic excellence.

Last on the agenda was a request for $10,950 from the A.S. Marketing and Public Relations Committee.

Steven DeLucia, chief technology coordinator, and Kevin Mojaradi, A.S. marketing and public relations coordinator, said the money is to help pay for student assistants.

DeLucia said his students helped a lot with technology problems the campus endured last semester, putting out more press releases this semester than in any other.

The duo requested $6,000 dollars to pay for marketing and public relation students and $4,950 to pay for a technology student assistant.

The finance committee voted 2-0 to allocate the full request.