Scholarship funding awry? Questions arise about University funding and student representation
By Torleif Sorenson
Metropolitan State University’s Student Senate is looking into some unclear decisions made about distribution of scholarship money at the University, as well as a possible violation of Minnesota State Colleges andUniversities system (MnSCU) policy on student representation on university committees. In the meantime, Student Senate members are trying to increase student participation on the University’s Scholarship Committee and help streamline the application and award process, both of which seem to have a disjointed history at best.
Original intent
On Oct. 26, 1994, the University’s Scholarship Committee met for the first time with word from the Student Executive Committee (SEC), the predecessor to the current Student Senate, that through the SEC’s relationship with the bookstore, $30,000 was available for scholarships for Metropolitan State students. The vision and intent from Dr. Susan Cole, then-President of Metropolitan State, was that these scholarship funds could be used to attract new students to the University, and called for the committee to establish criteria for disbursement of these funds and to create an application process.
Also relevant is a policy adopted by the MnSCU Board of Regents on April 18, 1995, including Section 2.3, Part 2, Subpart A: “Students shall be given the opportunity for representation on system committees, conferences and issue forums that are a part of the policy development and/or decision-making process.”
Further, Procedure 2.3.1 (“Student Involvement in Decision-Making”) gives specific language on student participation in groups such as Metropolitan State’s Scholarship Committee. Based on this policy, President Cole issued a policy on Nov. 3, 1995 that the Scholarship Committee would include additional members in order to allow the committee to distribute work-loads more efficiently and solve the problem of quorum representation at future meetings. Cole’s decision also increased the number of SEC members of the committee from one to four.
Cut from the committee
But sometime after spring semester 1997 – perhaps in 1999, when the University entered into a bookstore contract with Follett College Stores – the scholarship committee appears to have fallen into disuse, was informally disbanded, and/or stopped including student members on the committee. As of press time, The Metropolitan has been unable to obtain Scholarship Committee meeting minutes from after January of 1997.
Robert Bode, the University’s Financial Aid Director, has been Chairman of the Scholarship Committee in 2004. After Bode became Chair in 2004, the only student-member position on that committee was eliminated because, he says, the Student Senate representative at that time was not participating.
“I redrafted the policy, and it went through several stages of review. It was reviewed by the provost, and nobody raised the question during the process. There was a desire to ‘tighten up the committee’ and make it smaller while still providing oversight.” Bode also adds that by this time, he says, it was no longer referred to as a “Scholarship Committee,” but he provided no explanation or further details to The Metropolitan.
This decision was in conflict with stated MnSCU Board of Regents Policy, Section 2.3 Part 2, and Student Senate President Melissa Heinz says the Student Senate never received any notice or correspondence from Bode regarding the removal of the student representation. Further, she says she has found no evidence of this notice in the Senate archives.
Heinz first learned of this decision at a meeting of the Bookstore Committee late last fall, when Bode told Heinz that the Scholarship Committee had met, evidently with no invitation to any member of the Student Senate. Since then, Heinz has functioned as the only student participating in the Scholarship Committee, after a petition from the Senate to restore student representation.
Meanwhile, The Metropolitan has also sought Scholarship Committee meeting minutes, but as of press time had obtained only the first two-and-a-half years’ worth, suggesting that the Scholarship Committee’s documents may be in some degree of disarray and disorganization.
“Budget constraints”
The University’s two bookstore contracts with Follett College Stores from July of 1999 to June of 2004 and from July of 2004 to June of 2007 contain no specific provisions for scholarship funds. In both cases, Bode points out that the contract called not for any scholarship or grant money as a portion of bookstore revenue. Instead, the contracts called specifically for $5,000 in unrestricted donations for assisting with capital-related expenses, $2,000 donated to the university “in such as way as determined by the University,” and $1,500 “in textbook bookstore and scholarships” for each year the contract was enforced.
Trying to find out why the scholarship funding picture changed so dramatically at that time might prove impossible. As Bode explains, “The people who were there at that time… …are no longer here.”
Although some members of the Student Senate have raised questions about possible improper redistribution of funds, Bode explains, “The bookstore revenue goes into the general fund. It’s from rent from the bookstore, and we have costs associated with that space.” Bode summarized the University’s funding of scholarships and grants since he became Financial Aid Director: “There were severe budget constraints in 2003, 2004 and 2005, and the decision was made not to fund that. We had requested some funds for that scholarship, and we had to do a lot of back-and-forth with the then-Vice President of Finance. In 2005 or 2006, we put in budget requests, and didn’t get any funding. We pushed hard, and got the funding restored for fiscal year 2008.”
Student Senate reaction
Heinz says this addresses the grants, but not the scholarships awarded. As for the scholarship portion, Heinz says, “The committee will still have to address the inefficiencies regarding the management and allocation of these monies. Moving the grant portion into financial aid operations makes sense, however that does not address the basis of the problem in past funding, which did not reach the students.”
Another complication facing students who receive these funds is that they are not informed or told of the actual category or nature of the award until they receive tax statements stating the nature of the payment at the end of the calendar year. The checks being sent out by the committee were not attached to any sort of letter or a note explaining that the student won a scholarship and that money was to go toward a semester’s expenses.
At this point, the students of the University and the Senate are looking for answers and solutions. Heinz says that a realistic process should be put into place to advertise this scholarship money so that it is awarded to the students that deserve it and so that students have the time to put together a good application. She also notes that these scholarships are available to only Metropolitan State students, so they are much more accessible to those who apply; each student that purchases a textbook is essentially paying into this fund through the bookstore mark-ups on texts.
Transparency
Heinz says that only a small amount of scholarship and grant money was awarded in the fall of 2008 because the University administration made no announcement of the availability of these funds until five days before the application deadline. And a number of Student Senate members say there is still inadequate transparency from the University administration into their spending. President Hammersmith, Vice President of Finance and Administration Murtuza Siddiqui, Vice President for University Advancement Robert H Heuermann, and Exec. Assistant to the President and Director of Government Relations Thomas Cook attended the Student Senate’s meeting on Friday, May 1. They presented some general information about the University’s spending and projected budget deficits, and how these would affect the University.
Heinz says she asked Siddiqui and other members of the administration several times over the last year for a detailed summary of University spending several times prior to Friday’s meeting. Siddiqui’s predecessor, Kathleen Brannan, presented to the Student Senate twice each year, and that presentation consisted of a comprehensive spreadsheet with considerable detail on the University’s budget, spending, and any existing deficits. Heinz says she presented this template twice presented to Siddiqui as an example for what information the Student Senate was seeking, but says “the presentation that was delivered on May 1 did not contain the details requested by the Student Senate, including scholarship and grant money information and general line items.”
The General Fund
The University’s General Fund is also a point of concern for Heinz: “We’ve been informed by Robert Bode and members of upper Administration that the surplus of money that does not get allocated to Metropolitan State University students is being rerouted into the General Fund, instead of going into a distinct cost center for later awards. The General Fund, to students, has now become a sort of ‘anomaly’ or blind destination. Skepticism is rising among student senators as their requests for further information about the General Fund have been, to this point, unanswered.”
According to Heinz, the scholarship awards are still being mishandled, and although she says the efforts for advertisement have been addressed, they have not been improved significantly. “Many students still are unaware of the availability of scholarship and grant funds,” she says.
The President’s response
In a May 4 interview, University President Sue Hammersmith said that, “There is no document that says any particular percentage or portion of revenues goes toward scholarships, and no such document has ever existed.” Hammersmith continued, “This is a discretionary decision made year-by-year by the University President, based on the total resources available to the University.”
And while Hammersmith acknowledges former President Cole’s vision and intentions for scholarships, as stated in the minutes of the first meeting of the Scholarship Committee on Oct. 26, 1994, this does not constitute a formally adopted University policy. She also said it is unlikely that such a policy would be adopted since the University deals with budget and funding shortfalls on a year-by-year basis.
What next?
If there were budget shortfalls, as Bode mentioned, if the money disappeared, if there were attempts to incorporate or remove students, and/or if there were any changes made to the allocation of these funds, surely the University administration has documented this somewhere. Given that Metropolitan State University is a taxpayer-funded public institution, it would seem reasonable that this information would be readily available to the public upon request. Given the Student Senate’s difficulty in obtaining some detailed information about the University’s finances, and the difficulty The Metropolitan is having in obtaining committee meeting notes, it appears as if University administration and the Student Senate are some time and distance from resolving these issues.
The Metropolitan expects to continue reporting on this story in the July/August edition, scheduled for publication on July 5, 2009. The Student Senate and The Metropolitan welcome your feedback and inquiries. More information about the University’s Student Senate is available at their Web site: http://senate.metrostate.edu.