<rleton’s Student Association (CSA) passed the Spring Allocations, Monday, May 12th, with proposals to take steps toward evaluating and making changes toward the Love Bus Program and the College Readership Program.
Spring Allocations opens CSA to discussion about the amount of money given to each student organization, contract, and line item expenditure.
This year’s CSA budget breakdown allocates 82,212 dollars for Operating Funds; 175,302 dollars for Large Organizations; 17,778 dollars for Small Organizations; and 138,000 dollars for Line Item Expenses.
This spring, senators proposed ways to make the College Readership Program more environmentally friendly and efficient. Among the approaches referred to multiple times during the debate were: installing reusable bins, advertising that CSA does not get charged for newspapers not taken, and putting some newspapers on bars like they do at Blue Mondays.
Currently, CSA is under a contract with USA Today that includes the delivery of USA Today, the New York Times and the Star Tribune. Each week, any un-read papers left in the bins are not charged to the school. CSA’s contract with USA Today is above the baseline minimum number of papers, and while there was discussion to lower the amount of papers ordered, CSA took no action.
Part of the reason that many newspapers get wasted on campus is that the snack bar employees when they clean up every hour, throw the papers away, noted Senator Ben Barclay ’09. Moreover, while “[the papers] are being used, they are also being taken out of the public spaces, so [they] are not accessible to everybody,” said Senator Whittney Smith ‘10.
Due to Carleton’s environmentally conscious attitude, some senators suggest that since the newspaper is online, CSA should not order so many paper copies. “For a college campus so linked to the web, I don’t understand why it would be so bad to cut down [some of the papers we order],” said Senator Nimo Ali ‘11.
Other senators however, commented that the paper is highly used in places where there is no wi-fi, like the dining halls. Moreover, an informal survey was taken by Senator Jinia, in which she asked a whole table of people for a week whether or not they thought the number of papers bought should be reduced or not: “and they got mad [at the prospect of a reduction in the amount of papers]; they wanted their papers. The CSA is suppose to give students what they want, and students use the papers every day” said Senator Jinia Bharucha ’11.
Senators also discussed the efficiency and usefulness of the Love Bus Program, jointly funded by the CSA and St. Olaf’s student government. A question concerning student’s feelings toward the Love Bus may be put into a referendum question later this year.
“There seems to be a problem [with the Love Bus system, but] it’s a conversation to have over the year ahead of us rather than tonight. [A proposal should] be ready by spring allocation, because [otherwise] we would get rid of it without an alternative,” said Vice President Pablo Kenney.
No action was taken to change the Love Bus Program. The largest ridership from Carleton is to Target in the evening hours. Furthermore, the numbers of students using the service is proportional between the two colleges.