As the online semester continues for Baruch College, issues continue to arise, especially around club life.
Student life clubs are required to spend their budget by the end of the semester, but many are uncertain on how to do so. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, a lot of organizations have had to pivot and become creative by putting on virtual events or finding other methods to interact remotely.
This lack of in-person events and the cancellation of many previously scheduled activities causes a lot of chaos in the planning and budgeting process.
Last year during the fall semester, clubs already had multiple events and were on track to spend their budgets accordingly. This semester, however, many organizations don’t know what events to plan, and even if they did, any proposals for spending would have to be sent to the Office of Student Life by now in order for them to be considered for approval.
Another difficulty is that CUNY has implemented a new system for the management of student organization budget spending to add to the process. The steps include outlining what to spend the money on, waiting for the event budget proposal to be reviewed and then entering them into CUNYfirst.
“All proposed event budget submissions are due at least 6 weeks prior to your anticipated event, no exceptions can be made,” OSL stated. “You may not make any club related purchases for an event if you have not first received approval.”
If the process is not followed, the organization risks the chance of having the purchase denied and not being able to pay the vendor, which would not be fair to neither the club nor the vendor.
The issue is not spending the money, but it is the lack of clear communication from the administration on how to spend this budget to make an effective impact on students and making the process less stringent due to the constant changes that are affecting everybody.
Right now, the semester is halfway over and to even think about spending budgets and being able to secure the proposal at this time would be virtually impossible.
