The Council on Student Organizations has revamped its funding procedures in order to subsidize more student publications, and the changes have caused some student journals to undergo budget cuts and format changes.
According to COSO's new funding policy the council "will fund completely one 'bound' journal per year at a rate not to exceed $2,100. Up to an additional three issues per year may be published and must use a newspaper format at a rate not to exceed $275 per issue." COSO will also match any advertising funds raised by the journals' staff.
The new policy has different funding guidelines for newspapers.
Publications can receive a start-up fund of $275 which can be put towards the printing of the first issue, according to the COSO funding policy. Newspapers can also apply to the Student Assembly publications fund for funding to match what they raise in advertisements, according to the new policy.
Associate Director of Student Activities Linda Kennedy said the changes were enacted because "we had to look for a way to stretch the money further so there could be more publications."
"We don't have a limit on the number of organizations we fund, but we do have a limit on the amount of money," she said.
Up until this term COSO had no set spending plan, Kennedy said.
"The old policy was that they gave the money first come first serve until it ran out," Kennedy said. "There wasn't a priority system."
The change will affect many of the College's publications.
Previously COSO gave The Stonefence Review $2,600 each term for publishing costs.
The publication now faces "roughly an 80 percent decrease in funding," said Grayson Allen '97, an editor of The Stonefence Review.
Nicole Wiley '98, editor-in-chief of The Stonefence Review, said budget cuts may force the organization to publish on newsprint, instead of their usual bound format.
"This is an issue because we have always been a literary magazine, not a newspaper," Wiley said.
Wiley said editors are still working on the spring issue of The Stonefence Review, and no format decisions have been made yet.
But Kennedy said the change in funding is indicative of a larger problem.
"Ultimately we need to find a source of money for publications," she said. "For example, alumni-friends offer long-term support for these publications."
Even new publications claim the need for more College funding for publications.
Uncommon Threads, a feminist publication, and BLD, a non-partisan student publication, both began this term.
"In general publications should get more money," BLD co-Editor-in-Chief Kevin Walsh '98 said.
Giving money to publications is more important than giving money to one time events because publications "go out more than once and go out to the whole community," Walsh said.
Sean Donahue '96, former editor-in-chief of The Bug, wrote in an e-mail message his organization was funded by COSO but became self-sufficient on advertising revenue. He said The Bug stopped publication because of financial difficulties.
"There's a pretty small advertising base here to begin with, especially for a progressive newspaper," he wrote. "We suffered when the staff of another paper tried to talk advertisers into pulling out from our paper.
"If COSO had offered us funding we probably would have been able to get back on our feet and eventually be able to rebuild our advertising base," Donahue wrote.
Not all of the student publications will be affected by the funding changes. The COSO-recognized Sports Weekly receives no funding.
Camille Powell '97, editor-in-chief of The Sports Weekly, said all the publication's money comes from advertising and subscriptions of alumni and parents.
The Beacon, a conservative student publication, will not be affected by the change, said Kishan Putta '96, a contributor to The Beacon.
Putta said The Beacon receives funding from COSO, the Assembly undergraduate publications fund and several national conservative organizations that support conservative student publications.
The Dartmouth does not receive College funding and will not be affected by these changes.
