The Boston University Allocations Board will not accept student activity funding requests filed after Feb. 29 due to budgeting challenges, AB Chair Gurvir Dhaliwal confirmed in an email Wednesday following conversation among various student groups.
AB is an organization that allocates money from the Community Service Fee, a mandatory fee charged to full-time undergraduate students on the Charles River Campus o fund activities held by BU undergraduate student organizations, according to the AB website.
Dhaliwal, a senior in the Questrom School of Business, noted that AB’s budget for the 2015-16 academic year is $500,000, a decrease from its 2014-15 budget of $800,000, due to the university’s decision to waive the facility and service fees for all undergraduate student groups.
The board discovered its shortage in funds at the beginning of January, Dhaliwal wrote. Although the university waived facility and service fees, student groups have requested the same amount of money — sometimes more — for activities during this academic year.
“Although this meant more strain on our budget, it is definitely a positive sign for student programming as it shows more groups have become active in asking for funding,” Dhaliwal wrote.
As a result of this shortage, AB decided to require all student groups to inform AB of their requests for funding by Feb. 29. The decision aimed to provide the board with ample time to accordingly budget its allocations, Dhaliwal wrote.
“Unfortunately, AB does not get to decide how much more money it receives,” Dhaliwal noted. “At this point, AB did its best to go through as many requests as possible and the rest were reviewed by [university] administration. All decision made were made under the discretion of administration.”
A number of BU student organizations mentioned they had only recently learned that AB was experiencing financial difficulties, and it has proved challenging for organizations to submit funding requests for the semester.
BU Myanmar Student Association President Myat Ei Ei Phyu explained in an email that AB’s decision did not leave her much time to strategize the group’s own funding because its members had to speed up internal processes to catch the Feb. 29 deadline.
“As one of the smaller and newer organizations, we feel that we are not given similar opportunities or priority to funds,” Phyu, a junior in Questrom, wrote. “We have to go the extra mile to get a funding approval. This has been stressful for us.”
Stage Troupe President Michael Gobiel wrote in an email that AB has been a useful resource for his group and was pleased that he was informed immediately about its financial status.
“[Members of AB] were very upfront about what [their funding challenges] meant for us and other groups on campus and gave clear instructions on how we should proceed.” Gobiel, a senior in the School of Education, wrote. “Stage Troupe was denied funding for a poster that will now be covered using the group’s money … hopefully things re-stabilize for next year.”
John Battaglino, assistant dean of students and executive director of student activities, said AB did an “amazing” job at distributing money to student organizations. Battaglino also said the university plans to employ a contingency plan to fund student groups that need funding for future events and to accommodate AB recommendations.
“We will take any money that is unused undergraduate student fee money and we will put [it] in what we call the reserved [money],” Battaglino said. “We don’t use that [money] on anything that has to do with university operation budgets, and we save that for when students have a need.”
Battaglino said organizations such as student governments, club sports and the Residence Hall Association also receives funding from money taken out of the Community Service Fee. Battaglino said he welcomes student groups to reach out to him if they cannot find funds elsewhere.
“Any club or organization that has something that they want to do, and for whatever reason we’re not able to secure financing through AB, come talk to me,” Battaglino said. “I want to make sure we find a way to make things happen, if we can.”
Several students stated mixed opinions about the role of the AB on campus. Ambika Gogna, a sophomore in the College of Communication, said she was unaware of the board’s role in providing funds to student groups.
“It is a good idea that [AB] has money in the first place to helped out student organizations,” Gogna said. “I was just always under the impression that BU would always fund groups anyway.”
Gabrielle Oates, a sophomore in the College of General Studies, said she is concerned about AB because it only consists of undergraduate students.
“There should be a staff of BU faculty who distributes funds,” Oates said. “[The current structure of AB] easily allows for a bias distribution of funds that can result in discrimination of many kinds.”
Jordy Shulman, a junior in the College of Arts and Sciences, said he is grateful for AB’s positive impact on his campus a cappella group.
“There are a lot of technical elements to our shows that we wouldn’t be able to afford otherwise,” Shulman, a member of the BU Treblemakers, said. “Because of AB, we’re able to provide ourselves with resources that enhance our sound.”
Ah my favorite time in BU the AB