Web Editor’s Note: The list of approved allocations is posted outside the Student Affairs office in the JBK.
The final recommendations for Student Service fee allocations for the 2012-2013 school year have been approved. Most student services and academic extracurriculars received a cut in funding.
“There was $76,000 less to allocate,” Dr. Don Albrecht, WTAMU vice president of Student Affairs, said. “All of the fees were less, what we had available to spend was less.”
There were only eight out of the 58 programs that received any increase in funding for the 2012-2013 school year. Those programs were: Career Services, Nationally Competitive Scholarships, Student Counseling Services, Student Disability Services, Study Abroad, Tutoring Assistance, Veterans Resource Center and CORE Center Administration.
Albrecht said that there were no sizable decreases to any one program.
“Everyone on campus has to understand that we have to do more with less,” he said. “Everything has a cost to somebody.”Some areas on campus are already feeling the constrains of next year’s cuts.
“Due to budget cuts, we had to cut one show for next season,” Eric Harrison, a sophomore Theatre Performance major, said.
Harrison said the theatre department cut the children’s show out of their performing schedule. The children’s show is performed for area schools and there is one showing that is open to the public. Money from ticket sales is then donated to charity.
Hunter Hadley, a sophomore Biology and Biochemistry major, said that he understood some of the expenses, but he feels that some programs are worth the extra expense.
“I’m pleased [the committee was] not just giving money out to anyone who’s asked for it,” he said. “I understand cutting, but if it gives [programs] a chance to excel, give them more money. This campus is known as an agricultural and mechanic [university], but we have really gone into a mass media and music, they’re exploding. Give them more money to excel and take it to that next level, to the agricultural department level.”
However, Albrecht pointed out that all improvements have a monetary cost to them.
“When enrollment goes up, maybe we’ll have more money,” Albrecht said. “Do you want fees to go up? I don’t think students want it to go up. The [student advisory] committee didn’t even discuss raising the fee, but maybe later we’ll have to.”
In the meantime, programs such as the Branding Iron Theatre will have to make their budgets stretch. Harrison is hopeful that things will be business as usual.
“It’ll still be a good season,” he said.
