This is an open letter to both the Office of Student Involvement and the Student Government Association from Merrimack College Television (MCTV) and The Beacon
Merrimack College Television (MCTV) and The Beacon Newspaper requested funding to take a three day trip to New York City to attend the annual College Media Association Convention (February 26-March 1). We’ve had the chance to participate in this trip many times before. They are a great opportunity for members of both clubs to share their work portfolios, learn media production skills and strategies, and network with potential future employers and/or collaborators.
However, things did not go as planned this year because OSI and SGA let us down.
We believe that SGA and OSI did not properly communicate with us regarding our budgetary requests. The poor timing, lack of transparency, endless waiting, and nonexistent updates from both OSI and SGA have left us disappointed and frustrated.
Here is the timeline of events:
- In mid-October, the President of MCTV emailed SGA asking about this year’s process and timing for conference funding. The President was told information would be sent out soon.
- After not hearing anything for a month, the Faculty Advisor for The Beacon submitted our funding request through the Warrior Network on November 19.
- When we hadn’t heard anything by January 9th, the Faculty Advisor for The Beacon asked OSI for an update. OSI said they would ask SGA.
- After crickets from both OSI and SGA, the MCTV president emailed SGA on January 20 asking for an update.
- Later that day, SGA informed us that they had to wait to allocate budgets for the spring semester, which is why the decision was delayed. SGA told us they would be voting on the issue within the week.
- 10 days later, the president of MCTV emailed SGA again asking about the funding request. SGA said it was still under review.
- On February 3 and February 5, the Faculty Advisors for MCTV and The Beacon requested an update. Hotel blocks were almost sold out, registration prices were about to double, and we were running out of time to make plans with our professors for the courses we would miss.
- On February 7, SGA finally told The Beacon and MCTV that they would fund a little over half the trip. We were told: “Please know that we always encourage clubs to fundraise and seek alternate forms for funding when possible.” This meant that we had only two and a half weeks to attempt to fundraise, which was not nearly enough time to raise the remaining $5,000. We had no way to make travel plans and reservations without knowing whether we could fundraise that amount, and OSI and SGA didn’t give us any time to configure it because of how slow the whole process was.
The New York trip has always been a highlight for both MCTV and the Beacon, and we’re severely disappointed and disheartened by our inability to go to the event due to issues out of our control. Our seniors also missed their last chance to participate in this tradition. It’s especially disappointing when an organization we collaborate with, WMCK, was approved and much closer to fully funded to go to their NYC conference (although decision delays also cost the group more).
We’ve all been left puzzled as to why the two groups, whose jobs are to assist Merrimack clubs and organizations with their plans, failed to effectively communicate and work with us during this process.
We do not want other organizations to experience the headache and disappointment we’ve experienced this year. We call on OSI and SGA to revise their conference travel funding application and review process. We recommend that all conference travel requests should be submitted in the summer with the fall budget requests. This would allow SGA and OSI to see all of the travel requests for the year and make fair decisions based on that knowledge. If this is done early in the fall semester, it would give groups like The Beacon and MCTV enough time to actually fundraise if they needed to.
Please note, this open letter is in no way, shape, or form an attack on either SGA or OSI. We do not wish to strain our relationship with either of you, but rather, we are doing this to draw attention to the errors made, bring awareness to the issue, and show other organizations it’s okay to take a stand and voice displeasures while asking for changes to the funding process.
To any OSI or SGA members who’ve read this article in full, thank you for your time.
- Signed: Members of Merrimack College Television (MCTV) and The Beacon Newspaper
