If you had a $600,000 fund to spend on anything affecting student life across campus, what would you choose to spend it on? A weight room overhaul? Relocation of the Women's Resource Center? A $150 credit to every student's DBA? Think about all that fro-yo.
During this past year, $600,000 was poured into the Supercluster project. I don't intend this article to sound critical of the Supercluster project's intentions, as I agree that a change in the atmosphere of dorms would be of benefit to the campus. What I have difficulty with, and what I feel many other students have difficulty with, is how budget decisions such as this are made. Do you know any students who were a part of the committee that appropriated the funds for the project? Of course, some students were asked for their "input" on the project, but the actual student voting membership numbered too few to even warrant a count.
The simple reality is that the more money a group or project is given, the greater will be its ability to influence this campus. (S)he who appropriates the budget, wields the sword. As it stands now, students do not have so much as a butterknife.
Dartmouth College is a business. As much as I love this place, it is fundamentally a corporate entity. So let's look at it that way: We as students are not only consuming its product, we are shareholders. We are investing funds and expecting a compounded return on our dollar. Businesses looking to thrive in the competitive market of today and the future know that consumer and shareholder satisfaction constitute the foundation for longevity. Students are in a unique position in that we are both the consumer and the shareholder, yet there is a fundamental patronization of student input in major budgeting decisions on this campus.
A welcome exception to this is the Undergraduate Finance Committee, which appropriates the budget for the Student Activity fee. Its voting membership is composed entirely of undergraduate students who determine how $420,000 is to be spent, with guidance given by the Dean of Student Life. This, in my mind, is how budgets coming directly from student funds should be appropriated. The student is coming first in the decision, with guidance from an administrator -- not vice versa.
We all know, however, that the student activity fee represents the tiniest sliver of the active capital contributed directly by students every year to the College. Just look at the Financial Statements on page 32 of the College's Annual Report for 1996. When the UFC is given the power to appropriate its budget, it is a token formality. Little Jonny can play with the monopoly money all he wants. Gods forbid if the student toddler actually got his hands on the $116.7 million he directly contributed last year, or the $41.2 million coming in from auxiliary enterprises across campus, or if he got to say what he wanted done with the roughly $8 million worth of those revenues that went toward future reserves. He might waste it on toys or beer.
As it generally stands now, the big money budget decisions are made by administrators, with guidance from a faculty committee that has a few students in attendance. What if there was a fundamental shift in this budgeting paradigm? Try turning it inside out -- let the student body be responsible for making budget decisions (at least for the approximately 50 percent of the unrestricted revenue it directly contributes), with guidance from a general committee made up of mostly students and a few administrators.
For the sake of argument, suppose this committee would operate like the UFC, but instead of finalizing the budget amounts, it could propose several budget plan options. The office of the vice president and treasurer could then gather input or votes from the entire campus to determine which plan the students liked best. Can you imagine anything like this? I'll be the first to admit to the administration that this could potentially turn the campus upside down. But if the situation is handled correctly, I could also see an Admissions flyer proudly depicting that Dartmouth is the only Ivy dedicated to garnering widespread undergraduate input when allocating student funds.
I would say that, on the whole, student satisfaction has been remarkably well-addressed on this campus; but until the day comes when the management of this company comes to recognize cooperative management with its shareholders as an enormous asset rather than a liability, Dartmouth will be hindered from achieving its fullest potential in undergraduate excellence. Much akin to taxation without representation, the fundamental patronization of student input in budget decisions might best be termed "our tuitions, their conditions."
