Budget cut committee formed

By Kevin Lin     4/8/10 7:00pm

The Student Association is forming a Budget Planning Committee to make sure students have a voice in the fiscal process and to ensure highly valued programs stay despite budget cuts. According to its charter, passed at the March 22 SA meeting, the Budget Planning Committee is charged with "representing the interests of the student body to the Dean of Undergraduates and the Office of Finances on matters having to do with departmental budget planning."

The Budget Planning Committee will be a six-member group composed of the SA Treasurer, currently Brown College freshman Lemuel Soh, and five other members selected from the student body who will be responsible for finding out what programs are most important to the students of each department. The first members of the committee will be announced next week, and a chair will be picked at a later date within the committee. The committee will dissolve on March 24, 2014.

Student Association President Selim Sheikh, a Martel College junior who helped found the group with other SA executive members, said the committee was established to represent undergraduate interests.

---

---

"We felt that it's important to get the student voice in the decision-making process," Sheikh said. "So basically, getting involved in the process and being proactive instead of reactive."

Dean of Undergraduates Robin Forman said the administration is supportive of the new committee and that it has always strived to work with students when making decisions about the budget.

"Student opinion has always played a central role in that process," Forman said. "What this provides is a more systematic way that this communication takes place."

While Sheikh said the initial 5-percent cut during the 2009 academic year could be met without cutting into the programs of most departments, he expressed concern that this will not be the case next year. He said he worries for the sustainability of programs like those in the Community Involvement Center.

"They have tons and tons of service projects that they fund throughout the year," Sheikh said. "I feel that most of these projects, if not all, are extremely important, not only to the broader community, but also the Rice community."

The Budget Planning Committee would seek out programs important to Rice students, which will be gauged through a series of polls and surveys, before weighing in on budget cut decisions. Details of these polls will be worked out within the committee, which is expected to have developed an action plan by the end of this semester, Sheikh said.

Forman said the role of the Budget Planning Committee will be centered around communication, not only gathering student input on budget issues but also communicating to the student body what changes have been made.

"I'm always in favor of finding better and more efficient ways of sharing information with students and learning from the students of how to make Rice a better university," Forman said.

Forman said the budget will always be a complicated issue at Rice.

"The budget process is not just a decision on what to cut," Forman said. "That's a dramatic oversimplification. Our campus is and always will be a place of infinite opportunities and limited resources. That's our steady state.

---