Council of Advocacy and Leadership (COAL)

The Council of Advocacy and Leadership (COAL) is an umbrella student governance body at the University at Buffalo that unites the leaders of the university's major student governments. Established in the early 2010s (first mentioned in campus media in 2013), COAL's primary role was originally to serve as a forum for student advocacy and inter-governmental collaboration. The council is composed of the presidents or top officers of UB's various student government organizations, spanning undergraduate, graduate, and professional students. As of 2025, COAL includes eight student government leaders, representing the undergraduate Student Association (SA), the Graduate Student Association (GSA), and the student government of the School of Law, School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, School of Dental Medicine, and School of Management, with the Residence Hall Association (RHA) added as a non-voting member in 2023. The University Council Student Representative - the only elected representative and the only student who sits on UB's University Council - serves as COAL's chairperson.

Purpose and Evolution

For most of its existence, COAL functioned primarily as an advocacy committee. It provided a unified student voice on university-wide issues, enabling coordination among the disparate student governments. This advocacy role included discussing student concerns with campus administrators and presenting a cohesive front on policies affecting the student body. COAL is not a formally incorporated entity but is recognized as the single forum encompassing all student government units at UB.

A significant change in COAL's responsibilities after 2019, when UB's long-standing student governance fiscal agent, Sub-Board I, Inc. (SBI), was removed by the university to bring student governments under stricter university control. SBI was run by the students and managed the student activity fee funds that students are required to pay for, including a "Programming Fund" - a pool of money for special student-run events and initiatives - which originated from proceeds of a 1987 land sale with the stipulation that students would oversee disbursement of those funds. After SBI's controversial dissolution in 2019, UB's Faculty-Student Association (FSA), which holds financial responsibility for campus dining, took over financial management for student governments. Students were able to stay in charge of awarding the Programming Fund grants, however, by assigning the duty to COAL - since COAL was, by then, the only body representing all student governments.

Programming Grants

Starting in the 2022-2023 academic year, COAL began administering university-wide programming grants. That year, due to strong investment returns and accumulated funds (unspent during the transition from SBI), COAL had over $400,000 available to distribute to student clubs and organizations for events and programs. Clubs could apply for large grants - up to $45,000 per proposal - far exceeding what traditional student governments could offer. COAL's approach to these grants was notably more flexible than the budgeting rules of individual student governments. For example, COAL allowed rough cost estimates and did not require exact line-item budgeting for funding requests - something that student governments such as Student Association often require. This made the grants attractive to clubs but also introduced administrative complexity, since funds had to be reimbursed through the student governments' accounts, which themselves have stricter spending policies.

Impact and Notable Events

In its first cycle as funding allocator (2022-2023), COAL was able to fund nearly every club request thanks to the unusually large budget, effectively supercharging campus programming. Student organizations reported transformative impacts from COAL grants, such as the UB Badminton Club securing over $15,000 across two rounds of COAL funding, enabling them to purchase equipment and rent practice space that had previously been impossible for them to afford. However, the club's experience also highlighted growing pains in COAL's new roles, as delays and confusion in reimbursement left some orders unfulfilled and the club officers "chasing" answers between COAL and the Student Association finance staff (as Student Association is the recognizing government of the Badminton Club).

By the 2023-2024 grant cycle, COAL faced a tougher situation - around $242,700 was available, but student clubs submitted about half a million dollars in requests. For the first time, COAL had to choose some winners and some losers among proposals, a task made difficult by the lack of formalized selection criteria. Internal disagreements emerged over how to fairly allocate the scarce funds. SA President at the time Becky Paul-Odionhin claimed that the council didn't establish clear criteria and, worried that proposal ranking would violate SA's funding rules, withdrew the entire undergraduate Student Association from COAL in protest. This was a dramatic move, as SA represents a large amount of UB students and caused proposals from its clubs to be excluded from the grant decisions.

Following SA's exit, COAL proceeded to award grants only to clubs from the remaining governments, and even after funding all of those, about $91,500 of the budget went unspent. The exclusion of undergraduates drew a lot of criticism - Paul-Odionhin argued that COAL should consider all of students' proposals, but this move caused many undergraduate clubs to not get the funding that would help them further thrive.

Structure and Governance

COAL operates as a collaborative council rather than a standalone corporation or club. Its membership is predefined by the offices held, where each student government president participates, alongside the University Council Student Representative who chairs the meetings. The chair position rotates with whoever holds the University Council Representative seat - in 2023-2024 it was Aliko Turton, and previously it was A.J. Franklin (a former student newspaper editor for The Spectrum). COAL meetings are not generally public, and records of its deliberations have been sparse (University Archives had no official charter documents as of 2024). This informality has been a point of criticism, especially once COAL took on a financial duty. Some student leaders have advocated for clearer bylaws or guidelines for COAL to ensure consistency and fairness in decision-making.

The Faculty Student Association (FSA) attends COAL meetings via a non-voting delegate, and while FSA retains ultimate authority to approve disbursements, it has so far allowed for COAL to make decisions in evaluating grant proposals. The premise is that students themselves are best positioned to judge which student-led initiatives will "enhance the quality of the university experience," as the COAL grant guidelines put it.

COAL also continues in its original mission of advocacy. For example, COAL has been involved in planning UB's annual Shared Governance Day, which is about cooperation between students, faculty, and administrators in decision-making. By uniting all student governments, COAL can address campus-wide issues such as student fees, transportation, or health and wellness services with a unified student stance.