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A student voice of Saint Louis University since 1921
Vol. XCV No. 25
Editor-in-Chief-elect set to take the helm
Ryan Quinn/ University News
For Kyle Smith, his rise to the helm of Saint Louis University’s student newspaper was not something he expected would happen when he was recruited to be a part of the paper’s editorial staff during his sophomore year. “I’ve had quite a few lucky, unexpected breaks during my time with the UNews,” he admitted. “I first began as an associate sports editor my sophomore year, having never actually written for the paper before then. When the opportunity to join the editorial staff came up, I took it, honestly thinking of it as just something that would be fun, easy and a good way to make a little money. But pretty soon, I found myself running a sports section, followed by the opinion, and now, apparently, a newspaper.” But the junior, who is studying political science
and hopes to attend law school after graduation, feels ready to lead. He is energized by the responsibility vested in him to lead one of SLU’s oldest and most prestigious student organizations – one that is not bound by SGA funding or under editorial influence by the administration, and that generates most of its own revenue from advertising. Smith, in fact, has already had a taste of UNews glory; at the annual Missouri College Media Awards ceremony in April – the event that represents all college press in the state – he won an award for best editorial writing for some of the work he produced during his tenure as the UNews opinion editor. But, though the paper has had success in the past, Smith admits that times are changing – especially at the university level, where more and more students get their news from cell phones and social media. Smith outlined
a balanced approach to addressing this phenomenon, stressing the continued importance of the student press while also not underestimating the power of these new media forms. “I think the UNews plays an important role in campus life,” he said. “We are the only newspaper in the world that is focused solely on the SLU community. This gives us a pretty unique opportunity to do some really impactful original reporting. I also think that the paper plays an important role in documenting the history of the present day. Decades from now, people can look to our archives to get an unfiltered look of what life at SLU was like during our time here, and that’s something no one else can claim to do.” “[But] I’d like to expand
See “EIC” on Page 3
Thursday, April 28, 2016
CSO groups grouse over SGA disbursement By EMILY HIGGINBOTHAM Associate News Editor
By PAUL BRUNKHORST Editor-In-Chief
Cheers ... to 42 years: An editorial tribute to Dr. Avis Meyer.
As student enrollment continues to slide and the number of Chartered Student Organizations (CSOs) steadily climbs, the mileage of the Student Activity Fee has become less and less. This trend has led to frustration with the activity fee, as well as the funding process, which the Student Government Association steers. The funds that SGA accrues from the activity fee, and then doles out to student organizations, have not been able to fund some of the essential costs for some of the organizations. Undergraduate students pay $55 per semester, and graduate students pay $30 per semester, with SGA gleaning only 20 percent from the graduate fee. For the 2016-17 school year, SGA had about $907,000 to allocate to 142 CSOs. Nathan Dollinger, who served as the Vice President of Accounting for SLU Relay For Life and is the incoming Co-Chair for the CSO, expressed his frustration with the funds SGA allocated to his group for the 201617 school year. He said that SGA approved a budget of $8,400, but that amount will not be enough to support Relay’s spring fundraising event. “As a fundraising event, we like to keep our costs low in order to maximize our fundraising efforts, so managing on a low budget is a must,” Dollinger said. “I was not exactly happy with the funding process this year. Our operating costs for our event next year will increase by $500. SGA was aware of this, but decided on reducing our budget by $500, which will cause issues going into the next year.”
Dollinger said that the group appealed to SGA twice to make up the $1,000 deficit, but to no avail. He claimed that the funds that the group did not receive were deemed “not necessary for the success of the event” by SGA. “If we can’t cover the operating costs, we won’t have an event,” he added. However, according to Ronald Clark, the Vice President of Finance, the funding and appeals process are both complicated and challenging to execute. “A lot of groups are doing good work, but can’t be rewarded properly because the fee is decreasing, and the number of organizations is increasing,” said Clark. As the VP of Finance, Clark is aware of the challenges of the funding process, which comes with the difficult decisions on how much money each group is granted. In order to streamline the process, as well as remove bias from it, Clark and the rest of the Finance Committee have created a set of rules, called funding directives, which clarify what kinds of events and costs will be backed by the activity fee and which will not. These directives are then passed by the Senate and sent out to each CSO. Then, a funding kickoff takes place so that the Finance Committee can communicate the directives, as well as which types of groups will likely receive more money for their budgets. For example, a CSO like Student Activities Board is going to receive a substantially larger sum than a group like the Italian Club because of the inherent nature of the group and how many students the group serves. This funding kickoff is mandatory for all CSOs. If a group does not send a representative to
the meeting, the group will be ineligible to appeal their budget. Once the directives are sent to the CSOs, the executive boards have the month of March to design a budget and submit requests to SGA via SLU Groups. Before approving a CSO’s budget, the finance committee meets with each CSO to talk about the proposed budget, so that the groups can explain how they would use the requested funds. Then, SGA decides, in line with the directives, how much to allocate to each student group. Student organizations receive their approved budgets via SLU Groups. Item by item, the group can see if their request was completely, partially, or not fulfilled at all. If the committee decides to either partially fulfill or deny those funds for that particular cost item, they will provide an explanation in the notes section for that item. However, some student leaders found those explanations to be vague and nondescript. “I personally found it very confusing,” said Caroline Kelly, who serves as the president for the African Students Association. “There’s no conversation about why decisions are made, just a few notes on the side column.” Often, these notes are classified as an “undue burden” or simply “non-fundable per directives.” However, Kelly’s group did not appeal for additional funds. Other groups, however, like Relay For Life, appealed to SGA for more funds. This appeal process takes place at a closed Senate meeting, where The CSOs had to
See “CSO” on Page 3
Seeking a center, student veterans get a room of their own By TIM WILHELM News Editor
SLU’s veteran students have secured space for a commons located on the second floor of Wuller Hall. The acquisition came about through efforts by the Student Veterans Association (SVA) and the Student Veteran Success Task Force, which, led by Dean of Students Mona Hicks, unites professors, counselors and off-campus affiliates to advocate for veteran students. The commons will serve the academic and personal
needs of the university’s 336 military-affiliated students. These include approximately 200 veterans, as well as ROTC cadets, spouses and children who receive the transferrable benefits of the post-9/11 GI Bill. Jonathan Hurly, SVA President for the upcoming academic year, explained, “It’s going to be a central hub where veterans could gather all their information, where the SVA could meet. It’s going to be like a little area where they could do work, meet with their families, have lunch.”
Hurly enlisted in the Marines Corps right out of high school, leading to a nine-year tour that included 14 months in Iraq, seven months in Afghanistan, and two years in Japan. Medically discharged in October 2015, he now studies business and intends to work in federal service. He acknowledged that acclimating to college life on such a delayed timeline can be stressful. “We get these guys—and me myself—coming out of four to ten to 20 years of military service, and you know, the college envi-
ronment is definitely unique to us,” he said. “And we’re not the same, you know, a lot of us have wives, we have kids, we’re commuter students, we have experiences and backgrounds that make it really difficult for us to relate … with the student body itself.” The commons fulfils a pronounced need for a tighter social network. “A lot of these guys, they’re used to having something like a battle buddy or a fire team or, you know, a group of people that they kind of rely on, their support,” said Hurly.
Hurly sees an opportunity for growth through the National Organization of Student Veterans of America, which offers $10,000 grants, totaling $400,000 and sponsored by Home Depot, for the expansion of veteran centers. “One of these reasons we were able to acquire the space, schools all over the nation are realizing what it takes to help veterans succeed,” said Hurly. The Student Government Association recently approved an increase in the VSA’s budget, to $2,000. The funding will help with
events, outreach and further veteran support. VSA has also joined the Diversity Leadership Cabinet, which includes 21 other CSOs. Some of Hurly’s biggest challenges as president will be to unite and engage SLU’s veterans, whom he says “fall into so many different subcommunities on campus”; to improve the veteran attrition rate; to bolster SLU’s regional and national competitiveness with veterans’ benefits; See “Vets” on Page 3
Senior Send Off: A farewell to the UNews’ graduating editors Yea...so my first year with the UNews is down and I think I am starting to get the swing of things? But now they are telling me I have to leave? I... uh, don’t really know what I’m doing here anyways, Dr. Meyer just told me to come in and critique people’s writing? But the people are great, so thats been fine! Alex Hanel
It’s been a good three years — from writing for the opinion section during sophomore year to being editor this year, my senior year. As stated in my obituary, I love letters and when they’re put together: words. So I’ve enjoyed working here, being surrounded by great words and great people. I think we’ve done some excellent work this year.
This year on the Editorial Board has been the most stressful, demanding and rewarding experience I’ve had during my time at SLU. I learned a lot about myself and my place in the world of journalism and writing, but I think what I’ll remember the most are the people who have inspired me to be a better writer and journalist. Together we’ve put out some damn good papers. I’ll miss you guys. “You are the best thing.”
Paul Brunkhorst
Emily Higginbotham