Finding student funding for an IU gem

While most IU students were nursing a hefty hangover Sunday morning, I was struggling to conquer an 80-foot rock wall called Eureka in the Red River Gorge.
As part of a three-day class excursion through IU Outdoor Adventures, I spent my Little 500 weekend climbing actual rocks — something I had never done
before.

For the fiscal years 2011-12 and 2012-13, IUOA received $0.64 per student from the Student Mandatory Fee — less than one percent of the total fee, or about $50,000 a year — to provide experiences like these to students at a reduced cost.

For the next two fiscal years, the Committee for Fee Review has recommended IUOA receive nothing.

As a result, students will lose their discount for IUOA retail and rental gear. Trips like mine will lose their significant subsidy.

IUOA, a student leadership program of the Indiana Memorial Union, began in 1972 as a committee of the Union Board. For more than 40 years, IUOA grew to provide more than 120 trips and academic courses each year, IU’s only indoor climbing facility and a store offering outdoor equipment for sale or rent.

But IUOA is about more than just renting tents and taking students rock climbing. The mission of the organization is to foster leadership skills in students. In 2012, more than half of IUOA’s student fee allocation was devoted to providing free leadership programs to those students.

Since 2009, IUOA has increased participation by almost 400 percent. In 2012, almost 9,800 people used some aspect of IUOA. In the last year, it has more than doubled its annual retail sales.

In October 2012, the Today Show listed IU as one of the nation’s best schools for students who love the outdoors, and specifically complimented IUOA’s adventure programs like ice climbing and wilderness survival.

But IUOA’s student costs are already one of the highest in the Big Ten. To go rock climbing last weekend, I paid almost $200.   Students at Penn State pay $50, a $300 student discount. In its proposal to the Committee for Fee Review, IUOA was seeking a funding increase to begin reducing the prices of its trips. Without any student funding at all, IUOA will be forced to eliminate the trip subsidies altogether.

Next year, budding rock climbers like me will have to pay even more.

According to a letter from CFR dated Jan. 18, 2013, the committee was disappointed with IUOA’s “lack of responsiveness” to committee recommendations “for more careful financial management, increased financial transparency and more effective budgeting to ensure sustainable operations in the future,” and felt the organization did not represent a “good steward of student money.”

Of course, Kyle Straub, who, as president of the IU Student Association, served as CFR’s chair, knows all about good stewardship of student money. His own salary and his administration’s choice to invest $17,000 of student money in Hoosier Info Kiosks are perfect examples.

The committee’s main concern with IUOA seemed to be the funding it receives from the Indiana Memorial Union. As a Union program, IUOA receives a subsidy from Union revenues that often covers its annual operating loss.

“It may be possible for the reserves of the Indiana Memorial Union to cover both the annual ‘net losses’ and the amount of funding previously provided by these student fees,” said the Committee’s Jan. 18 letter.

But according to Dustin Smucker, IUOA program coordinator, the subsidy represents a significant misunderstanding between the committee and his program.

“This subsidy is necessarily unspecified in order to leave room for revenue and expenses shifts within the IMU’s total budget,” Smucker said. “Furthermore, the committee members did not respond to the IMU fiscal officer’s request to meet to discuss their financial questions.”

Eliminating that $0.64 student fee doesn’t create a funding gap that can be filled by the Union; it just eliminates the discounts students receive.

Students who don’t take advantage of that discount may  argue funding organizations they don’t participate in or benefit from with their money is unfair, and they make a good point.

But it’s not hard to get $0.64 of value out of something. If you’ve ever had a class with someone who has been through a leadership development program at IUOA or listened to someone tell an interesting story about their IUOA trip, you’ve probably gotten your $0.64 in value multiple times over from their contributions.

When we have strong leaders and interesting people on this campus, we all benefit, even if we’ve never rented an IUOA tent.

And if we’re trying to reduce college costs and improve the fairness of funding, a $0.64 fee is the wrong place to start.

Back on Eureka, I was ready to admit defeat. Then I looked up.

Twenty feet above my head a length of rope connected four carabiners. Through two of them ran the rope that connected me to the ground.

I wanted to give up. I wanted that rope to take me back to Earth. I wanted to admit it was easier to remain ignorant of my own potential than to actually put it to the test.

I wanted to get out of a harness that was slowly squeezing what remained of my crotch to bits.

But I wanted to touch those carabiners more.

The word eureka comes from an Ancient Greek phrase meaning “I have found it.”

College tends to be characterized as a journey of finding ourselves. Sometimes, clichés are true.

Hanging from the top of Eureka, I found peace and rejuvenation beyond the bustle of campus life and one of the most beautiful treetop vistas I’ve ever seen.

I found a new respect for people and their accomplishments.

I found friends I never would have met in Bloomington.

I found a whole new level of potential within myself beyond my perceived mental and physical limitations.

For all that, I think we can find a measly $0.64.

­— drlreed@indiana.edu