Where did all that money go?
By Maggie Beidelman
My meeting last week with Mike Wallace, director of the new and improved Santa Clara Fund, was surprisingly productive.
The meeting was prompted by a column I wrote from the Thursday before, which suggested that the request for a senior class gift seemed unfair at a time when most seniors are wondering how they're going to pay off four years of tuition.
To prepare for my meeting, I e-mailed 62 students and alumni asking you why or why not you plan to donate to Santa Clara.
What I found out, as I told Mike, was not that students are ungrateful about their experience here -- many students replied that their time at Santa Clara has been enlightening, productive and privileged. Rather, the overwhelming response was that students are concerned about paying off debt from a private education and are uncertain and disappointed about the distribution of university funds.
Why did the university spend excess money to buy unnecessarily-expensive gaming computers for our library, some of you asked. Why spend so much money on a new business building with flashy open spaces when what we really need are more classrooms and offices? What's with the aesthetically-appealing but ergonomically-unfriendly furniture in the library?
As I walk around, I see immaculate lawns and palm tree transplants -- is this where my money is going?
These concerns might seem petty in comparison to the privileged education we receive, but they are frustrations that have built up over time, causing student dissatisfaction with the limited connection we can draw between the money we pay and what changes on campus.
Yes, the gaming computers may have been donated, the new buildings an attempt to boost Santa Clara's overall image and credibility, and the palm trees a fire hazard. There may in fact be legitimate explanations for every student's financial frustration. But the thing is, we students are not informed.
When financial decisions are made at Santa Clara, they are not properly communicated to the student body. As students, we do not have a comfortable knowledge about where our tuition money is going.
The reason I wrote the column, I told Wallace, was to voice the frustration about how the senior class donation was solicited, not why. We were asked to donate money, but we were not told, as Mike told me, that the donation could be only $10, and it could go to any organization or group on campus that we feel compelled to donate to.
What we need is a means of better communication between the students and the administration -- a stronger trusting relationship that will keep both sides from, well, taking sides. And we need it now.