As the use of Tufts' recovered funds continues to prompt debate, Amherst College students recently voted to donate a sizable portion of their student reserves to financial aid.
In an online vote on March 11, the Amherst student body overwhelmingly approved a $70,000 donation to the college's annual fund in support of financial aid and low-paid employees. An additional $30,000 gift will help fund student activities that would otherwise have been cut or significantly reduced in light of the economy.
The March ballot polled students on two issues: whether they were interested in making a $70,000 gift to the college and, if so, whether they wanted to fund a visiting professorship for one year or financial aid and salaries.
Of the approximately 60 percent of the student body that participated, 92 percent voted affirmatively for the contribution and 74 percent opted for financial aid and staff salaries, according to Amherst Senator Nic Zhou, a junior.
The $70,000 donation, taken from the Association of Amherst Students' (AAS) funds, represents a "very significant" portion of the AAS' reserves, said AAS Treasurer Peter Tang, a junior who largely conceived of the idea. Fifty thousand dollars will be directed toward financial aid, and the rest will go to the staff salary pool.
While the $30,000 student programming gift, which students approved earlier in the semester, was taken out of the AAS' annual operating budget, the AAS' reserves have accumulated from unused student activity fees from prior years. Certain accounting decisions, coupled with interest earned from bank accounts, created an excess of funds which allowed the gift to be made, Tang told the Daily.
The nature of the reserves inspired the contribution.
"It's unspent money from the past combined with interest from the bank," Tang said. "It's not really the current-generation students' money."
As Amherst increasingly implements budget cuts in the face of the economic crisis, the senators agreed that the gifts were needed to maintain the integrity and quality of the college.
All visiting professorship hirings, for example, have been frozen for next year and the administration has not renewed any contracts for current visiting professors, Zhou told the Daily.
Meanwhile, budget cuts have also had a direct impact on student life. Dorms have reduced heating, hamburgers are smaller in the dining hall and the administration has threatened to cut the popular "Take Your Professor Out" program, Zhou said.
Additionally, he added, there was a "consideration that financial aid might take a hit." The administration has reconsidered the college's need-blind status for international students and its no-loan policy in financial aid packages.
As a result, the students sought to allocate funds not only in support of threatened student programming and services, but also as a way to urge the administration to rethink its priorities.
"The idea was that there were going to be bigger cuts than the ones that have already happened ... so the point behind the gift was to send a strong message to the school," Zhou said. "Don't cut important programs."
Tang added that donations were also designed to encourage alumni to increase their contributions to the college.
A $50,000 gift for financial aid is a "drop in the bucket," Tang said. "The bigger deal is to inspire alums to ... not forget about donating in the hard times. It's our way of saying we're sacrificing here, too."
The majority of the Senate, Tang said, felt that the financial aid option, as opposed to funding a visiting professorship for a year, would have a larger effect on the Amherst community.
Even so, Amherst sophomore Adam Garmezy argued that adding a professor would benefit more students and would motivate more alumni to donate.
"I think we needed [the professorship] because right now, our classes are over-enrolled," Garmezy told the Daily. "Having another professor shows a symbolism that our school is in need and we don't have the education that was promised to us."
Amherst's decision comes after a heated debate last semester within the Tufts Community Union (TCU) Senate on the best use of the nearly $690,000 in dispersible funds resulting from the embezzlement scandal.
TCU Treasurer Matt Shapanka, a senior, argued at the time against directing the money to financial aid, noting that the funds were recovered from student activities fees and were not designed to support tuition.
In response to Amherst's decision, Shapanka said that the TCU Senate has still aimed to cut students' expenses more broadly. This has included efforts to reduce textbook costs and replace the Office of the President's co-sponsorship funding.
"The Senate is doing everything in its power to help cut the cost of attendance for students without donating to ... financial aid," he said.
