Forty students will ride on GW’s float in the presidential inaugural parade on Jan. 20 alongside a massive inflatable globe, a real-time stock ticker and other symbols of the University’s various colleges, the project’s organizer said this week.

Charlie Burgoyne, the Student Assocation’s director of programming and activities, said the SA will guarantee spots on the float to the first 20 people who volunteer to work on it over winter break – sign-ups begin Monday in the SA’s Marvin Center office. Though the project is still in the planning stages, the most recent design showcases a 46-foot-long float built on two trailers and includes a physical representation of each school.

“We’re going to have 40 to 45 students overall on the float,” said Burgoyne, a senior. “But 20 of them will be any student who wants to come in and help build the float.”

Tim Miller, executive director of the Student Activities Center and the University administrator overseeing the project, said the original estimates for the float were close to $350,000. Because the construction will be completed by students instead of being outsourced to an independent contractor, the costs will be closer to $85,000.

“(The reduced price) has been made possible by a large group of interested students as well as a number of University departments stepping up with their expertise and knowledge to support this endeavor,” Miller said.

Student Association President Vishal Aswani said the design will be submitted to Congress for approval on Friday.

“This week we will submit our application for the parade, and if luck is on our side, our wonderful design will be accepted, and the float will be allowed into the parade,” Aswani wrote in an e-mail.

Burgoyne, who is directing the construction of the float, said the SA received a variety of student submissions for the float’s design.

“I wanted it to be any form of expression that students wanted to contribute, be it lines, mantras, poems or signs,” Burgoyne said. “We got a whole range of things. But what it came down to in the end was taking a few of the best and sitting down with a few of the engineers and say what is viable.”

He added, “Every bit of the school is incorporated in this very interactive and active montage.”

Burgoyne said he hopes students from all parts of the University will want to be a part of the float construction. GW Housing has agreed to let students return to their residence hall a week early from winter break to help build the design, he said.

Attached to the first trailer will be a 12- to 20-foot floating globe balloon meant to represent GW’s international studies – with eight students standing beneath it. The first trailer will also have graduate art students working on a bust of President-elect Barack Obama and three students dressed as the skeletal, muscular and flesh systems to represent the University’s Medical Center.

The School of Engineering and Applied Science section, located on the second trailer, will consist of students building a mini-Baja vehicle. A real-time stock ticker will be placed behind students simulating day trading to commemorate the Duques School of Business. The design also indicates students walking alongside the float, including four who will hold the University’s flag.

The inaugural parade, which is free to attend, will be run along Pennsylvania Avenue after Barack Obama’s swearing-in ceremony on Jan. 20. Burgoyne said he hopes the float will encourage students to watch the procession.

Burgoyne said, “I want students to leave saying, ‘That’s me. That’s my university.’ ” n