I had an interesting interaction with some Programming Council members promoting their upcoming Springfest on Marsh Plaza. I asked how they’d acquired the unnecessary Segway one of the promoters was riding, noting that they run about $5,000 each, and got a response to the tune of, “This is BU. We’ve got money. PC gets stuff done.” I asked why we still have to pay $10 for Springfest and was told that PC only sees “a penny from each student, so we do the best we can, but it’s just not enough to cover costs.”

I understand that PC’s budget may not have sufficient funds to cover the entire concert, but money seems pretty expendable when you’re cruising around on a Segway just to promote an event. I’m not advocating that Boston University dish out half a million dollars to fund a concert, but the fact is that this university is shelling out wasteful dollars for plenty of undertakings that don’t benefit the students. We might as well demand a little more bang for our buck while we’re getting robbed by the administration. The Board of Trustees can act as if it knows what’s best for this university, but its members are so far removed from the school and the experience that BU students have. I bet they aren’t exactly struggling to pay off their student loans.

In a perfect world, tuition wouldn’t increase in a manner “proportional to other universities” each year. BU would care more for its students and employees than its reputation. Besides, reputation comes easily when students and staff are happy. What better way to develop a reputation than to send 4,000 students into the workforce each year raving about how great BU is. Instead, BU builds new dorms, funds a hockey team and develops a trendy new logo so that more students will be lured into their money pit. I’ve heard from plenty of employees as well that BU’s salaries just don’t match up to other similar institutions. All this money has got to be going somewhere. Let’s get the numbers out publicly and then we can all help the university look for sections of the budget that can be scaled back.

Mark Foelster

SAR ’08