The Student Newspaper of Saint Joseph’s University
Volume XCVIII | Est. 1929 | www.sjuhawknews.com
Sept. 19, 2018
North Lounge statue damaged Laocoön cast, on loan from the Met, to be repaired SAM HENRY ’19 Editor Emeritus
St. Joe’s rugby plays against Rowan University at Sweeney Field on Sept. 16 (Photo by Luke Malanga ’20).
Spring Concert fund revived Budget cuts affect student activity funding
ALEX MARK ’20 News Editor
University Student Senate leaders restored funding for the 2019 Spring Concert, which had been cancelled over the summer due to cuts to the Student Budget Allocations Committee (SBAC). The SBAC, which receives allocations from the university, distributes funding to almost 90 student organizations across campus. Student Senate President Jason D’Antonio ’19 said after he learned that the 2019 Spring Concert was cancelled, Student Senate sent a letter to the university asking for a meeting to explore restoration of the funds. “We realized that students really enjoy
the Spring Concert every year,” D’Antonio said. “But we also have an obligation to actually have student life on campus and that requires money.” As a result of Student Senate’s efforts, the Spring Concert was funded after other organizations gave up a portion of their budgets. Each organization is now operating on a smaller budget than before. D’Antonio said the plan for student-funded groups to sacrifice a portion of their funding to revive the concert was devised by Michael Efstration ’19, treasurer of Student Senate and John Jeffery, Ed.D., assistant vice president for Campus Life. Currently, the proposed plan gives the Spring Concert $96,750, which is $10,972 more than what was spent for the 2018 Spring Concert.
(Graphic by Kelly Smith ’19).
“We need to stress that this is a temporary solution,” D’Antonio said. “I don’t think it’s a responsible way to keep operating, so the university is going to have to make some strategic financial decisions and really prioritize not only funding, but appropriate funding.” Every year, St. Joe’s students are each required to pay a student activity fee of $180. Of that fee, $170 goes to student activities, while the remaining $10 goes to the Green Fund. The total of each student’s fee was $774,000 last fiscal year. The SBAC is responsible for allocating its budget, which in the past has included student activity fee money plus a subsidy from the university. Although its activity is overseen by the University Student Senate, the SBAC is ultimately an independent entity run by students. Last year, the university subsidy consisted of $108,810, but this year the subsidy was eliminated and the Spring Concert was allocated no funds. The cut was made due to “historic underspending,” Cary Anderson, Ed.D., vice president and associate provost of Student Life, said in an email to The Hawk. “When evaluating where to make budget reductions, trimming funds which are not consistently spent is a prudent way to proceed,” Anderson said. About $102,773 was left unspent by student organizations at the end of the last fiscal year, Anderson said. Out of the organizations that had underspent, the Spring Concert and the Green Fund had the most money left over. CONTINUED ON PG. 3
The cast of the Laocoön statue located in the North Lounge in Campion Student Center was discovered broken around 4:30 p.m. on Sept. 12. Public Safety arrived and sealed off the area so the situation could be evaluated. Since the room had been empty from 10 a.m. on, Public Safety used the security footage from the hallways to determine who had been in the room throughout the day and the last time someone saw the cast undamaged. “In the course of the investigation a student came forward and admitted to being involved,” said Anderson, who declined to name the student. St. Joe’s received the Laocoön cast in 1999 from a partnership with the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which loaned the university a collection of 41 casts. In addition to the North Lounge, the casts are located in Toland Hall, the Francis A. Drexel Library and off-campus storage. “There are not that many collections of great plaster casts in America, so I was really happy to get these,” said Carmen Croce, director of the Saint Joseph’s University Press and curator of the University Art Collection. The Laocoön cast and Michelangelo’s Bacchus and Faun have been in the North Lounge for about 10 years. Croce said this was never the best location for the casts although it allowed people to view them. “The alternative was not to have students have access to them,” Croce said. “Faculty have used them. I thought it was much better that they be out, even if they were in harm’s way, than if they be in storage.” While Croce was upset to hear that the cast was broken, after evaluating the damage, he realized that it can be fixed. Ultimately Croce plans to remove the casts from the North Lounge, not because of the damage, but because of the opportunity to have them restored and put on display at The Barnes Foundation. “We actually have a really good record here,” Croce said. “We have had very little damage over the years.” Anderson said Public Safety is finalizing the investigation and will issue a final report in the near future. “It is important that we brought some closure to it,” Anderson said. “Otherwise it would have been frustrating not to know exactly what happened.”