DKE participated in the Buddy Walk earlier this year, raising money in support of the National Down Syndrome Society. @DKEMANHATTAN / COURTESY
By Barbara Vasquez, Asst. Production Editor
With the start of the new semester came a harsh blow to student clubs and organizations with a reduction in budgets.
During winter break, some clubs were hastily informed of even bigger budget cuts, while others didn’t get much of a warning at all.
When asked if he was given much notification about the budget reductions, Jake Steinweiss, president of Manhattan College’s fraternity, Delta Kappa Epsilon (DKE), told The Quadrangle that the budget cuts weren’t expected at all.
“We actually made a purchase expecting it to be reimbursed, and then we were told that they just couldn’t help us out on that one.” Steinweiss said.
The office of student engagement is facing heavy criticism surrounding these circumstances, but the office has no tangible action they can take concerning club financing and merely acts as a messenger between the student population and the MC administration.
Montserrat Nicasio, the vice president of club administration in student government, shared her knowledge of the situation.
“Officially there aren’t any cuts,” Nicasio said. “There has been a minimization of spending, that’s what student engagement has been told by the administration, but nothing official has come out about [completely] cutting club budgets. People still have their budgets, technically, but you just have to go over it with student engagement.”
Although some student organizations do still have funding to work with, major cuts made to their budgets have forced some clubs to forfeit important events and honors.
Brylee Watkins, chapter president of MC’s Public Relations Student Society of America (PRSSA), told The Quadrangle that the club had to give up both their attendance at leadership development conferences and their ability to vote on the national board for PRSSA in the coming year.
She also shared her opinion on how taking away these opportunities might impact future membership of the chapter.
“For PRSSA specifically, I think as you take away those opportunities there’s less incentive for people to join,” Watkins said. “Now there aren’t those networking opportunities, there aren’t those development opportunities, etc.”
Watkins also gave some thoughts on how these cuts could affect current members in the long run.
“It does affect your professional career because, as we know, networking is so important in the PR industry- and in any industry in general,” Watkins said. “So ripping away those opportunities for people who really care and want to be there [leadership conferences] is really frustrating.”
As an organization focused on philanthropy, DKE has relied on the school’s funding in order to organize events that can raise money and awareness for a multitude of causes.
Now, Steinweiss has shared some compromises that DKE has started to make to compensate for this lack of funding.
“We have to be careful with how much we’re spending because we don’t want to take that money from what we raised [for charities],” Steinweiss said. “We want to cover it ourselves because that’s the whole point of philanthropy. We can’t do too many events where we have to pay now, we have to try and do things that are low cost, but high reward.”
While many clubs on campus are dealing with these budget reductions, it’s important to know why these reductions are happening in the first place.
Nicasio explained the situation based on communication from administration with student engagement.
“They’re trying to get the college back into a state where it used to be,” Nicasio said. “It’s just been so many years coming now that it’s kind of exploded, so the basis of it is just they want to get [MC] financially healthy again.”
The majority of the allocated funds are being used for the benefit of students still. Nicasio told The Quadrangle some plans that student engagement had for the money that was being reduced for the clubs.
“The priority of spending for student engagement is going into things that are really important to us, like Spring Fest, which is a carnival that’s going to be a good fun activity for people,” Nicasio said. “And also Senior Formal. So I think a majority of the spending is going to those activities that are going to be school wide and for the students.”
The financial stress on MC as a whole has left clubs asking for support from the rest of the student population.
Steinweiss believes that helping different clubs out when you have the ability is just one way to unite the community and show support to fellow Jaspers.
“I know we’re all college students and it can be hard financially, but when you see a small organization – or even a big organization – on campus raising money for a charity, it’s always nice to just help each other out, if you have that extra $5 to give,” Steinweiss said.
Watkins biggest suggestion is to use your voice and express your feelings on the current situations at MC.
“Definitely making your voice heard to not only student engagement, but past student engagement, to their higher ups.” Watkins said. “They [student engagement] can only work with what they’re given, and I think something that has to change at the school is with students being heard, whether that is for clubs or just like academics in general.”
MANHATTAN.EDU/COURTESY