• Format
  • Publications (documents)
• Type
  • Text
• Source institution
  • Western Carolina University
• Identifier
  • HL_WesternCarolinian_1978-11-02_Vol44_No11_14

■ ■ ■ PAGE 14/THE WESTERN CAROLINIAN/ NOVEMBER 2. 1978 Carolinian opinion and commentary Appropriations '78 •From Page 16 That leaves the club with $50 for four remaining Interium Councils where they are to represent WCU. President Steve Warren said $50 will not even cover the clubs printing expenses. NCSL is a student organization made up of universities and colleges which act on various legislation which is presented to the North Carolina General Assembly. Forty percent of all NCSL legislation has been passed into law in North Carolina. Ask the University Center Board which sponsors most of the activities on campus such as movies, mini-concerts, the fun house, rafting trips and other activities to make life at WCU a little more enjoyable. They asked for some $38,000 of which they got $15,400. That was less than they got last year! So when there is nothing to do in Cullowhee on weekends you know where to start complaining. Ask WWCU which wanted over $28,000 to run the campus radio station effectively. They got $17,305. The big problem will come in the next couple of years when WWCU has to move from 10 watts to over 100 watts of power and SGA has to foot some of the bill. Money should have gone to start purchasing that new equipment this year instead of waiting. It will only hurt appropriations in the years to come. Ask any club and they will tell you they are not happy. The finance committee had to cut budgets semewhere, but one wonders why it had to be some of the clubs that most benefit the student body as a whole. The 1978-79 appropriations are history and unfortunately the senate did not come to the aid of those major clubs and organizations on campus that will suffer due to lack of funds. As for the finance committee, they worked long and hard to produce the best budget they felt they could. No nlatter what the finance committee came up with there would be criticism. The simple fact is there is not enough money to go around. Yet, the money SGA has should go to the clubs that will most benefit the most students first and the rest should be divided among other clubs. So what can be done? I served on the finance committee for two years before I resigned from the senate and I faced the same problems that the committee faced this year. Each year the finance committee is faced with a number of new clubs asking for funds. Because of the policies within SGA to fund as many clubs as possible the larger clubs suffer as funds are taken from them each year and distributed to more and more smaller organizations. This year 12 new organizations were funded compared to last year. A total of $1,700 went to these new clubs. Four clubs that existed last year no longer recieve funds from SGA. In addtion, the motor pool, "Miscellaneous Joyner," Student Handbook, and the Xerox Copier take $14,300 out of the budget. Special educational interest groups such as the Art Students League, Biology Club, English Club, Geology Club, Phi Beta Lambda, Student Affiliates of the American Chemical Society, Industrial Educational and Technology Club, Marketing Management Club and Economic Affairs Club take a total of $2,790 from the budget. Various other small organizations are budgeted money and many of these clubs do not spend the total amount budgeted to them. Then come the larger clubs, the clubs that take the vast amount of the money. The largest funded club last year was the Catamount, this year it was the Western Carolinian. Four other clubs, SGA, SAGLA, the UCB and WWCU, are also among the top money getters. Next year, Comptroller Roger McKinney estimates the budget will be $125,000. With a few changes, let's see what we can do with that money using a different approach. •establish a media fund of $40,000 for the Western Carolinian and WWCU. This would be used by both organizations and would increase proportionately with student fees. •Second, establish an educational service fund of $3,000. This would allow each of those clubs that are related to various academic departments on campus to use this money and would eliminate a large amount of the waste from the smaller clubs. •Third, refuse to fund any clubs that did not exist the previous year. Let a club first prove itself as legitimate before $200 or $300 is spent on that club. With so many new clubs each year it will continue to burden the existing organizations. •Fourth, introduce a resolution in the senate to eliminate the miscellaneous Joyner fund. Some $400 is being wasted here each year. •Fifth, stop the wasteful use of the motor pool. With $6,500 appropriated to this in 1979 it will obviously be abused. About half that much money should be set aside and no more. Also, only allow clubs to use it who really need it and if you have to make them pay for it out of their travel account. •Sixth, include the uses of the Xerox machine in each club's budget and eliminating the free use of the machine, which will take $2,800 out of this year's budget. •The last major change would be to combine the University Center Board with Student Government Productions to run all major and minor programming on the WCU campus. The two organizations, using money set aside for SGP, would both work more effectively and give the students more for their money. Both clubs do a remarkable job for the students and together they could do more. To do this it may mean there would have to be an increase in the proportion of student fees appropriated to SGP. (Note: this is a different account than money appropriated from SGA). Say we take $15,000 from that $125,000 and give it to SGP and the UCB in addition to what SGP already gets. Now look at the other clubs: The Catamount needs about $25,000 for a good yearbook—any less than that will mean an increase in the purchase price of the book. SGA needs about $15,000 to offer students the services they need. SAGLA needs around $7,000 to bring in two good speakers and still run the other functions of the club. Add to this the Student Handbook at $4,600 and $600 to NCSL and the budget looks like this: Media Fund Educational Service Fund Motor Pool Catamount SGA SAGLA Student Handbook NCSL $40,000 3,000 3,500 2S.000 15,000 7,000 4,600 600 Total $98,700 Now let's go down the 1978-79 SGA budget and fund all the clubs not in my budget. Notice they will receive a significally larger amount than they did this year. Organization of Ebony Students $800 Cherokee Native American Students 200 Outing Club 300 Barbell Club 500 SCEC 300 Circle K 300 Total $2,400 Add that to the $98,700 and you have $101,100. Every club that was funded this year by SGA was funded in my budget with the exception of the UCB and $15,000 was taken from the budget to be added with SGP money for the UCB. With all the clubs funded—and money set aside in the educational fund than was actually appropriated to the clubs involved in the fund we still have over $8,000 to be used for special needs of clubs and organizations. This is a challenge to SGA—with some major changes in the way money is appropriated the appropriation problems of student organizations and the finance committee may be solved. It might work—prove me wrong. With that $8,000 SGA could again fund The Nomad and Neo-Blackness next year. This year's budget was significantly lower than next year's and many of these changes would not have helped this year. But they could help in the years to come. Also note that this is based on no new clubs next year. Anyone can take the money estimated to SGA and make up their own budget and each will come up with a different budget than that which the finance committee decides upon. This is a budget idea for next year, a year when there will be more money and probably more clubs to spend it. SGA has been appropriating money the same way for many years and some of the ideas I have expressed are not new. But still, they have never been tried and it's time some changes took place. Talk to your senator, talk to the people in SGA and see if you can offer any suggestions to make the budgeting process fairer and more beneficial to clubs and organizations. Maybe its time to reorganize, to Letters How 'bout some privacy? Dear Editor, At the beginning of each academic year, several thousand unlucky souls signed housing contracts. In spite of the knowledge that we would have a minimum amount of noise related to a building being occupied by nine hundred individuals, we still signed. However, we were not expecting intermittent dynamite blasts, bulldozers, front end loaders, and various loud annoying noises beginning at 7 a.m. and sometimes continuing as late as 7 p.m., Monday through Friday. We would suggest that the housing contract is being defaulted because we are exposed to unpleasant situtations over and above what anyone should have to put up with. The noise is not only irritating, it is also impairing everyone's ability to study and concentrate There is no reason on God's green earth why we should not have a minimum amount of privacy and quiet considering we pay over $150 a month for one distastefully decorated room occupied by two people. Also, because of the enormous amount of dust and dirt stirred up by construction on the new building and the road, many students find themselves constantly coughing, and 1 personally find the thought of the dust collecting in my lungs very unpleasant. Basically, the area around Scott and Walker has become hazardous not only physically, but mentally as well. Certainly our grades cannot be expected to be on the same level as one who has a quiet comfortable environment, and the gaping holes left by construction do not even have barriers or caution signs. I personally hope to fall in a hole, make very low grades, and contract a respiratory illness related to breathing high concentrations of dust, so that I may sue the hell out of this school. Determinedly, Rebecca Nelson Nomads future looks bleak Dear Editor, The Nomad, WCU's literary and art magazine, may have a bleak future ahead of it. At the recent SGA Senate meeting, it was decided that no funds would be appropriated to the magazine this semester. This decision seems to indicate a general feeling that the magazine is of little importance to our university. It saddens me to think that a Liberal Arts university, "which composes the curriculum of academic or collegiate education, as distinguished from technical or professional education," would allow this creative outlet to become blocked. Since there is no creative writing major, or a gallery in which writers can display their works, The Nomad is the only formal means whereby a student can creatively express himself, and receive a sufficient amount of public attention. Writing with no audience of goal in mind is like giving a choir concert to an empty auditorium. As vice president of the English Club, I met with president Judy Harkins, and other members of the club, and we decided to first present a formal appeal to the finance committee. If this plan of action fails, we intend to fully cooperate with Janet Beaudry, editor of the Nomad, in obtaining donations and organizing fund raising activities to assist in publication of the magazine. We ask for your support, and invite all interested persons to attend the Nomad meeting, Wednesday, November 8, at 4 p.m. in the Dogwood Room of the UC. Diane Fisher rethink and to reexamine the way SGA devides money to clubs and organizations. The appropriations are the most fascinating event in SGA during the year and it's a shame more senators did not take part in the budget process. As for the finance committee, they deserve to be complimented on a fine 1£ 7? fu V0} ? C0U'd have been do"e considering the help they had. As for the members of the clubs who got the shaft-well, you know when SGA elections in the spring are and will certainly remember the 1978 fall appropriations when you cast your vote.

The Western Carolinian is Western Carolina University’s student-run newspaper. The paper was published as the Cullowhee Yodel from 1924 to 1931 before changing its name to The Western Carolinian in 1933.

• Creator
  • Western Carolina University
• Format
  • Publications (documents)
• Type
  • Text
• Date
  • Date original: 1978-11-02
  • Date digitized: 2018-08-27
• Extent
  • Dimension: 22" x 16"
  • Pages: 20 pages
• Subject - Topic
  • College student newspapers and periodicals
  • Cullowhee (N.C.) -- Newspapers
  • Universities and colleges -- North Carolina -- Cullowhee -- Newspapers
• Location
  • Jackson County (N.C.)
  • Cullowhee (N.C.)
• Source institution
  • Western Carolina University
• Source Collection
  • WCU Students Newspapers Collection
• Identifier
  • HL_WesternCarolinian_1978-11-02_Vol44_No11
• Repository
  • Western Carolina University Hunter Library