NEWS
Tuesday, August 24, 2010 - Page 3
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Budget cuts put pause to Jukebox travel By patrick galloway digest staff writer
Stadiums around the Southwestern Athletic Conference stand to get a bit quieter, due to newly imposed state budget cuts. The Southern University Marching Band became the next victim of state budget cuts, with the band only scheduled to travel twice during the 2010 football season. The Human Jukebox is scheduled to travel to the MEAC/ SWAC Challenge in Orlando, Fla., against Delaware State Labor Day weekend. Its only other road game on the slate as of now is the Bayou Classic in late November. “There is an ongoing effort to raise funds so that the band can travel to more away games,” university spokesman Edward Pratt said. Exactly what those details entail was not revealed, but Pratt said the university and its supporters are trying to find ways to raise money to pay for the band travel expense which include renting buses and meals for the band members. “The state budget cuts not only affect the academics at the university, but also the
photo by polite d. stewart jr./digest
The Southern University Marching Band goes through its paces during practice. Budget cuts have reduced the Human Jukebox’s traveling schedule to two road games as of today.
extracurricular activities like the band and athletic department,” he said. “If the university could help with the effort for band travel they would, but the university’s main goal is the academic success of its students.
The main focus of Southern University is to provide a learning environment that is conducive to the success of the students and the faculty.” Due to the funding by ESPN for the MEAC/SWAC Challenge game and the available funds
honoré from page 1 and how “Wall St. and Main St.” are getting a majority of taxpayer money while those who live on what he called “Railroad St.” are too often left to fend for themselves. “Every city has a Railroad Street and on this street are those living in poverty,” Honoré said before yelling “NO MORE POVERTY IN YOUR TIME!” to the students. During the open discussion period where members of the audience would ask questions the challenge of how to motivate people to get out of poverty was raised. “I feel that the people in this generation are better suited to help the next generation stay connected to education. There is no reason that a child should ever be disconnected from having a good education,” he said. “I feel as though this is your generation’s Vietnam; use your skills and opportunities to motivate the youth and get more active in regards to social injustices.” According to Honoré the only way to put an end to these “Railroad streets” is to never become disengaged from education and learn to help ourselves. He also added that we need to learn to point out each others strengths instead of weaknesses. “Let’s put our kids in these organizations such as the Boys and Girls Club to help find out what that child’s strength is and then build on it,” he said. Lt. General Honoré authored two books; Survival: How Being Prepared Can Keep You and Your Family Safe and Survival: How a Culture of Preparedness Can Save You and Your Family from Disasters. He donated a few copies of each to the university which can be found in the John B. Cade Library.
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for the Bayou Classic, these two games were picked out of the six away games on the 2010 football schedule. The remaining away games that the band will not attend include Alabama A&M, Jackson State, the Shreveport game
against Prairie View and Alcorn State, unless the efforts for travel are made. Pratt believes that Lawrence Jackson, director of bands, would like to travel to every location on the schedule but believes that he understands the university financial situation. Jackson declined comment regarding the marching band’s traveling situation. “We also know that he leads the best band in the country, so the administration feels the necessity and the want to be able to help get that band to more games,” Pratt said. “The university understands the importance of the marching band going to the away games because the fans want to see the band no matter where there travel to but there is an expense involved,” said Pratt. “When your budget is cut to the degree that our campus budget has been cut, the administration has to make some tough decisions.” The marching band is also performs annually at New Orleans Saints home games. Those appearances are not affected by the cuts because either the Saints or the NFL pays the band.
mason from page 1 new job and not a promotion of any sort so he [Dumas] will not be getting paid extra to do the same tasks that he was previously doing. Dumas’s salary was increased to $60 thousand from $44 thousand. Mason also wanted to stress the role of the system’s office, it doesn’t function the same way a chancellor’s office would even though it is located on the Baton Rouge campus. His role is to support each individual chancellor and find ways to further the system and not any campus alone. When asked why the dialogue seemed to convey a sense of disconnect between the system and campuses Mason explained his Five Finger theory to support his function. “Each campus is a separate finger, my job is make those fingers a hand and then turn that hand into a fist to bring the SU family together to fight through any and every problem,” he said. One very prominent issue are the increased budget cuts that may be ahead for next year. There are plans to cut an estimated 38 percent out of the budget system-wide which according to Mason is “pure insanity.” System-wide the budget is approximately $72 million and these cuts would take around $27 million out of that. “This is a threat to our campuses and we can only hope to react the best way that we can,” said Mason. “Now more than ever is the time for SU family to stand up in defense of our fair institution.” Even though there are concerns about Mason not having any ties to Southern University or any Historically Black College he is confident that he is good at what he does and will do whatever it takes for Southern University to improve upon itself.