Financing Student Life
Jackson Miller, Liam Patton, and Peyton Howe
Examining the flow of capital within a system is a tool utilized by political scientists to identify patterns within hierarchy. Such an analysis was done over the student body of Wabash College. The student body of Wabash College, and the systems at play today, are vastly different than those from which they emerged. Our work sought to draw out a narrative from stores of archival research and our own personal experiences.
We map the emergence of student finances to the emergence of student organizations. For instance, the Wabash College Catalog speaks of students organizing into “club houses” where members might pool their funds together to pay for a matron, or buy food in bulk. These “Club Houses” would eventually adopt greek letters, or become student led clubs. Each of these clubs were insolar, and each student would pay dues dependent upon which organization he wished to join. This was the status quo up until the creation of the “student activity fee.” The student activity fee was an incredible step for the student body. Now, each student was both (1.) required to pay the activity fee and (2.) obligated to participate in student life. We hold that it was the creation of the student activity fee that would predicate the vibrant student life we have at Wabash Today.
The Student body did not instantly have control of this activity fee. For a short while it was a singular member of the faculty who held absolute control over the allocation of the activity fee. However, a shift had taken place in which the students were given full control of the activity fee and the allocation of budgets. While there was, and still is, oversight that is had by a member of the administration, there seems to be a general consensus that the students are in complete control, thus marking this position by the administration, mute, in the perspective of the students.
We also noticed that there seemed to be a very recent uptick in accountability when it comes to budgetary allotments from the Student Senate. From what we could scavenge from our research, the student senate would allocate funds in a very broad manner. Clubs would request budgets at the beginning of each semester, and they would be fully granted, partially granted, or not granted at all. There also appeared to be no significant accountability, as this money was fully distributed to each club at the beginning of the semester, along with a lack of oversight. As recently as 2021, however, the Student Senate has fallen victim to a lack of documentation, and many dollars in assets have disappeared, or just not been accounted for. This would appear to be why the Student Senate is now requiring extremely detailed information from each club, concerning what exactly they plan on executing their budgetary allotments. While clubs still make requests at the beginning of each semester, they still must detail every week how they plan on using the Senate Credit Card. This appears to be in an effort to prevent the heavy loss of assets that has been plaguing the senate, especially in the years 2018 and 2021, when many thousands of dollars of assets were wasted or lost. This did not appear to be an issue in the 80s and 90s, but our assumption, based on rigorous research, is that assets were being lost far too often, and far too frequently. Thus, the conception of extremely detailed requests and documentation on the part of the entire Senate.
The Calliopean Society was a literary society funded and led by students. The Society acted in many ways like a “proto-fraternity” with member’s dues going towards debates, dances, and other social functions for members. For the men of this literary society, misconduct in the practice of oratory and debate could result in fines. Like many early student organizations, there existed a value proposition in joining both the Calliopean or rival Lyceum, as both came with their own libraries, with textbooks for common curriculum at the College, to be used by the members of the society.
Here we can see a dance that took place specifically for the students of the college. These dances happened every so often, and seemed to be a huge hit on campus. These dances were put together by the senior council, and they were funded by the student activity fee. The senior council allocated the activity fee, which ultimately came from the tuition, so basically the students funded the activity fee. These dances have been a part of Wabash for a very long time, and these dances were some of the more popular events that would happen in the early days of Wabash.
This exhibit is from a 2021 AFC Meeting. These notes are important, as this is a current insight into the process that the Student Senate utilizes on a weekly basis to determine the budgetary allotments that will be granted to students. In the past, budgets have been allotted at the beginning of the semester. From what we could tell, there was also not a large amount of oversight when it came to these budgets. Now, however, we have an official document that clearly displays that the Student Senate requires rigorous detail. Despite this, we know that large-scale budget requests are made at the beginning of each semester. This would indicate that there has been a dramatic change made since the conception of the requirement of budgetary allotments at Wabash College. The rigorous detail seems to correlate to a 2018 study that was done by the students, where the discovery was made that a large amount of assets were completely lost. Hence, the more detail that is now required when budgets are allotted.
Here we can see the senior council meeting. The senior council held authority over all matters of student activity fee allocation until their dissolution and the student senates simultaneous creation. At this point the treasurer of the Senior Council held broad authority over all manner of club fund allocation, much to the dismay of many a Bachelor Editor. Authority over the allocation of the student activity fee has waxed and waned with the passage of time, but it was always such that the students were able to determine how and when their funds would be spent.
Here we have a picture from National act this year. This year's performance was held on the basketball court, and the performer was NLE Choppa, and it's safe to say that the whole campus had fun. National act is both planned out by the student senate, and it is funded by the extremely large budget tht student senate possesses. The funds that are used to pay for national acts are from the student activity fee, and this fund even receives carry over from funds that are not used from the previous year. Every year that national act happens it is a huge hit on campus. At times decisions made with regard to funding are contentious within the student body.