New York University is investigating allegations that the student council president misappropriated funds and tampered with the electoral process, officials said yesterday.

The student-run newspaper, Washington Square News, last week reported allegations by some student council members that their president, Meredith Dolgin, improperly disbanded an election committee and appointed two friends just as the elections were about to begin. Yesterday, the newspaper reported that Ms. Dolgin hired her grandmother as a guest speaker for $2,200 and took a weekend trip to a pumpkin patch on Long Island using student council money.

Ms. Dolgin, an NYU senior graduating next month, did not respond to a message left on her cell phone yesterday.

“This all raises some troubling questions,” an NYU spokesman, John Beckman, said. “We take the matter seriously. We have two separate inquiries: one that addressed the electoral issues and the other that would address the spending inquiries.”

The student newspaper reported that Ms. Dolgin last week sent an e-mail message to student council members to defend her actions.

“It is of my primary concern to uphold the democratic ideal, and I have never allowed my personal feelings to inhibit democracy,” she wrote in the e-mail message, according to the newspaper. “I am deeply saddened that the Student Council will have to work to repair their image for years to come.”

Ms. Dolgin allegedly dissolved the electoral committee after the newspaper started investigating allegations that she misappropriated funds. The council has a $103,000 budget, which it uses to fund student groups and activities, university officials said.

Mr. Beckman said that if any evidence surfaces that Ms. Dolgin acted inappropriately she could face judicial hearings in the student council and, if university-wide rules were broken, further penalties.