Henry Harper, ’27, began his term as Executive Committee treasurer in late January, just in time for the committee’s winter emergency budget meeting.
As treasurer, Harper verifies student organization budgets and guides funding allocations across campus. The role also involves ensuring that the balances reported by organizations match the EC’s records along with completing the EC’s credit card expense report.
Harper was selected through an application and interview process run by the EC, said EC Vice President John Beekman Youngblood, ’27. There were five applicants for the treasurer position and seven total across both the treasurer and student organization liaison positions.
Typically, the treasurer is hired at the end of the calendar year, but EC President Meaghan Endres, ’26, said, “Last semester was really busy, and we didn’t really need to hire a new treasurer right away because we didn’t do emergency budgeting until after the new one was hired.”
Harper’s late selection did not negatively impact EC proceedings, Endres said.
Harper’s first opportunity to perform the role of treasurer was during the winter emergency budget meeting. The EC met with several student organizations, which submitted their current balances and items they wanted additional funding for.
Harper’s job was to confirm they were not misrepresenting their existing funds and provide advice and clarification on funding matters, he said.
“It’s been great,” Harper said of his new role. “It’s maybe a little bit different than I anticipated, just from the fact that I don’t have a ton of responsibility in [the EC] room very often, which is maybe easier than expected. But I do enjoy it.”
Harper emphasized that, “The goal isn’t to save money — the goal is to use it in a disciplined way.”
“During deliberations, he’s very reasonable,” said Youngblood, who works closely with Harper. “This past budgeting period went really well, and Henry was a great voice of reason in the room.”
Harper said he was motivated to apply for the treasurer position partly because of the opportunity to work closely with Youngblood, a good friend and member of his fraternity pledge class.
“I also enjoy interacting with the student body,” Harper said. “I thought it would be a great opportunity to contribute and give back.”
Youngblood said Harper was a very impressive candidate.
“Henry was honestly almost overqualified,” Youngblood said. “He’s had finance-related internships the past few summers and has a significant role in the Williams Investment Society. He’s also working in finance next summer in New York.”
“Henry seems incredibly responsible,” Endres said. “He also seems like someone who will be really committed and pleasant to work with, and he seemed genuinely excited about doing it.”
Harper wants to continue allocating money to organizations that have tangible plans for it, he said.
“I want to make sure that what we allocate here is contributing to the student experience at W&L,” he said.
