Money: there never seems to be enough, whether you're a struggling college student or a campus organization trying to fund a year's worth of events.
Avenues by which student groups exhaust their budgets - from sponsoring campus-wide events to holding meetings to advertising - abound. After settling their budgets with the Allocations Board (ALBO) each spring - this year's process is currently underway - the organizations begin planning for the next year's meetings and events. With the plethora of student groups on campus, from relatively small pre-professional groups to super-groups like the Leonard Carmichael Society (LCS) and Concert Board, student leaders fund many different programs in just as many different ways.
According to Tufts Community Union (TCU) Senate Treasurer Michele Shelton, each organization spends its budgeted money on events pertinent to its ideology and interests. "There are a lot of groups that do the large-scale events, then there are other groups that do small things," she said.
Shelton cited the Concert and Programming Boards, Hillel, the Pan African Alliance, and the Feminist Alliance as groups that usually produce large events each year, such as concerts and semi-formals. On the other end of the spectrum, Shelton said that many of the pre-professional groups, like the Pre-Vet, Pre-Med, and Pre-Law Societies often bring in speakers and go on field trips to educate their members.
"We mainly spend our money on educational trips, veterinary enrichment trips," said sophomore Meagan Rock, the Pre-Vet Society treasurer.
TCU assistant treasurer sophomore Sarah Sandison said that although groups spend their money in various ways, many sponsor a few main events each year. "In general, across the budgets, [most groups] have two big events," she said.
One group that requested more money from ALBO for the coming year was the Chinese Students Association (CSA), one of the largest cultural organizations on campus. CSA Treasurer sophomore Chester Mui explained that this year's expanded budget will help fund the Chinese Culture Show it will be hosting this Thursday. In addition to receiving money for big events like the Culture Show, Mui said that the group has received more co-sponsorship money this year. "[The TCU] is trying to pull all the clubs together," he said.
Anne Keefe, editor-in-chief of the literary magazine Queen's Head and Artichoke, is also looking into expanding the group's co-sponsorship fund. She said her group is trying to "[foster] a community environment between magazines." Although increased co-sponsorship budgets will facilitate better communication and cohesion between similar campus groups, Keefe noted that another area of Queen's Head's budget was not as equitably funded.
"This year we didn't even get what our printing [cost] is," she said.
Other campus leaders expressed similar concerns about the lack of needed money in their budgets, such as sophomore Vicky Hartanto, co-coordinator of the LCS Shelters program. "They cut our budget a lot this year because the people who did Shelters last year didn't spend anything," she said.
Rock agreed. "We haven't really spent too much [this year] so we don't know if we'll get the same money next year," she said.
Rock isn't the only leader worried about the upcoming budget decisions. Tufts Dance Collective (TDC) co-director Amanda Miller hopes that the group's budget will match the growth of her organization. Each TDC show requires the group to spend money for technical assistance, dance space, advertising, and costumes. As the group grows, Miller finds it more difficult to put on a safe, entertaining show within its budget.
On the other hand, new organizations face a different problem in finding money to fund events and attract members. - they only get a temporary budget, which typically falls far short of their wants.
Sophomore Viola Manteufel, a member of the recently recognized Tufts Religious Union for Cooperation and Ecumenicalism (TRUCE), said that the group is planning to host a forum on the Bush presidency and its implications in society. Since TRUCE is a new group, though, it doesn't have a budget to fund the forum.
A universal expenditure for campus organizations is advertising. Through posters around campus, table tents in the dining halls and the campus center, and ads in the Daily, groups hope to attract new members to their meetings and events. Hartanto said that most of the Shelters budget goes toward advertising in hopes of catching the attention of possible new volunteers.
Sophomore Dan Rosenberg, editor-in-chief of the literary magazine Optimus Prime agreed that ads were an integral - and expensive - part of a group. He said that although most of the magazine's budget "clearly goes to printing," the group also spends a lot of money on advertising for submissions deadlines and interest meetings.
With increasing expenses, groups may do almost anything to pass a higher budget, and some students are concerned about rumors suggesting that organizations stack their e-mail lists to prove they have more members than they actually do - subsequently raising their funding.
However, many student leaders believe that this does not generally occur among Tufts organizations. "I don't think the size of the group plays into [the budgeting process] as much as how much money they need," Hartanto said. She pointed out that only a few students plan and coordinate the LCS Kids' Day program, yet they have quite a large budget.
Sandison said that the Allocations Board (ALBO) looks at organizations' spending each year - not the number of people in their group - to determine the next year's budget. If ALBO finds that the group's money has been well spent, it will usually allocate a similar amount to the new budget. "In my experience, the groups that have members spend their money and spend it well," said Shelton.
