Due to the cancellation of First Night, many clubs have not used Student Senate funding for recruitment purposes this year. Graphic from clipartpanda.com.
Traditionally at the beginning of every school year, new students flood the campus on First Night, looking at all the clubs that the University of Rhode Island has to offer them.
However, that was not the case this year as due to COVID-19 restrictions. No on-campus, traditional First Night was held this year, leading to many clubs having to find other ways to interact with and appeal to new students.
With this, the money that was going to be used for the First Night and for so many other activities, from concerts to conferences, is being left untouched.
Typically, recruitment and First Night is only a fraction of the total budget allocated among Senate-recognized student organizations, with many clubs only spending $25. Some clubs spent upwards of $100 on recruitment last year, with the largest amount used on recruitment and First Night spent being $400 by Powerful, Independent, Notoriously, Knowledgeable (P.I.N.K) Women.
Many clubs are still meeting online, Katie Siegle, chair of the Senate Student Organizations Committee said. Siegle also said some clubs are conducting in-person meetings as long as they are in areas that can accommodate an amount of people that fits social distancing guidelines.
However, many clubs also receive large sums of money for events they hold. For instance, the Student Entertainment Committee (SEC) had $100 in their budget for recruiting last year, but had $320,000 to spend on speakers and talents for special events such as concerts.
When asked about their spending of the money, SEC Concerts President Fabian Coronado said that it does make spending money more difficult than it would have been, saying that they can’t do live shows and even with the switch to virtual events, money is tricky to manage.
“Some artists are extremely expensive for virtual shows and we don’t want to go too high for a virtual show in case we can do live shows the second semester,” Coronado said.
The possibility of not having all the funds available, or not being able to use all the money may be a cause of concern for members of clubs that are worried about what may happen to money from their general budget since everything has been changed due to COVID-19. According to the Student Senate’s Director of Treasury Mitchell Asante, organizations’ funds will all still be there even if some of it is unused.
Asante said that, for instance, if a club does not use up their general budget during the school year, it will not be held against them during the 2021-2022 school year. This funding that was allocated in the last budget decision by the previous Student Senate director of treasury will still be there for the entire year whether it is used or not.
“I’m not gonna say ‘you didn’t spend $125 [on recruitment] this year because of COVID, so you’re not gonna get it this year,’” said Asante on if clubs do not use their recruiting and First Night budget. “They’ll still get money.”
These organizations who were allocated money to put towards their First Night activities weren’t able to access this money since in-person recruitment couldn’t happen this year.
“We aren’t gonna take that money away,” said Asante. “It’s still there.”
Asante said that if an organization requires funds for recruitment this year, they will be able to access it. If not, Senate will consider the recruitment funds that were dispersed but minimally used when allocating the budget for next year.
Asante also said that as always, the budget will still be looked at by a committee and that everything will be put into consideration. If a club would like to tap into their general funds, he said that that would be the same process as usual. Money over $800 that clubs need to be allocated must go to assembly in Student Senate for approval on the floor.
However, URI clubs will still get the funding they need, even with COVID-19 changing up how the budget for each club is being used.