Last week, Brandon Moran’s “Accountability and Ethics” article raised questions about how the Outing Club manages its budget. Moran focused on two specific topics: how expedition grant recipients are chosen and who manages the club’s overall budget. As an Outing Club house member, I write today to endeavor to answer some of Moran’s questions, and I hope to clarify a few specific aspects of the OC budget to the St. Lawrence Community.
First, I’ll touch on expedition grants. Each year, the Outing Club elects a group of five or six in-house students to form an Expedition Grant Committee, which is in charge of publicizing the grants to students, perfecting and sending out the grant application and serving as the primary point of contact for students interested in expedition grants.
This committee does not decide how much money from the overall budget goes towards expedition grants, nor does it single-handedly choose who will receive money—rather, they serve primarily to organize and expedite the process. Next, the committee reviews the applications, and brings in the top five applicants with thorough and feasible applications for an interview. After the interview, all 26 house members vote on the final recipients of the grants.
I asked Izzy De Buy Wenniger, a sophomore on the committee, what the group looks for when selecting who to bring in for an interview. “We try to help people who otherwise might not be able to do their trip without a grant,” she explained. “We’re looking for general things like thoroughness of planning, effective use of money and how useful the money will be to them.”
Celeste Holland, a senior committee member, elaborated on how the $2,500 dedicated to expedition grants is divied up. “We try to give support to the multiple people that apply,” she stated. As a result, she added, “the amount of funding might not cover the entirety of the trip.” The Outing Club must strike a balance between granting as many people as possible access to the money, and ensuring that there are adequate funds available to each person awarded a grant.
Moran’s article also raised questions about the house’s outreach. This year the club employed a number of different strategies to raise student awareness about this opportunity: first, a notice was posted in every class Facebook page; second, paper notices were posted around campus; third, an email was sent out to the OC email list serve, which reaches over 850 students; fourth, this information was posted on SLUwire; and, lastly, the Outing Club Instagram page, as well as many members’ personal pages, attempted to communicate to students the availability of expedition grants. This is information that the committee, and the house as a whole, wants to make available to all students—in fact, since current OC members cannot apply for expedition grants, there is absolutely no incentive to deny the student body the opportunity to apply.
The second point raised by Moran dealt with our overall budget—specifically, who manages it, and how. I’d like to address one specific concern here. “The responsibility of managing a budget of $79,840 is an extremely tall task to place on one member,” Moran stated, referring to our house treasurer.
We at the Outing Club thoroughly agree, and so does Thelmo—which is why we don’t place that task all on one member. Though there is one named house treasurer, Gunnar Nurme, he serves more as a middle man between Thelmo and SLU administration and the OC than he does a single-handed budget manager. Moran suggests that “a systematic approach of using a third party to oversee how funds are being allocated might be a solution to further provide transparency.” That is, in fact, the exact system we use. In our case, Thelmo and the Budget and Finance Office serve as those third parties.
Let me first outline how our house budget is created. Each year, the treasurer works with the house president to rewrite the budget proposal, which is then submitted to Thelmo—just the way that every other club and organization must submit their budget. Thelmo examines the itemized budget, and decides whether or not to grant us the money as described.
After the budget is granted, it continues to be monitored. In order to receive reimbursement for trip costs, which house members front themselves, each receipt must be submitted to the house treasurer, along with a description of the trip. Next, every receipt goes directly to Phil Scott, the SLUSAF Central Treasurer, who examines the receipts once again. Scott then submits the receipts to the SLU Budget and Finance Office, who eventually administer reimbursement checks to house members.
The responsibility of managing a budget so large would be a massive and irresponsible one to place on one student. That’s why Phil Scott, SLUSAF, the Budget and Finance Office and Thelmo as a whole play such an integral role in monitoring our funds. Though Gunnar, our treasurer, does do an extraordinary amount of work to keep our club running, it would be remiss to assume that he as an individual has the autonomy to make large scale budget decisions. Each expense is cross-referenced by a number of third party entities to ensure that our budget is utilized for its intended purposes only.
I recognize that it can seem difficult to gather this sort of explanation. $79,840 is a big number—and it’s not clear to everyone on campus how exactly it’s used. That’s one of the reasons I appreciate Moran’s article so much—it raises specific questions that we in the house are happy to answer.
Additionally, I recognize that getting involved with expedition grants, or any other part of the OC, can feel intimidating—especially for people whose communities have historically been excluded from the outdoor adventure world as a result of larger-scale systematic and institutional discrimination and subjugation.
What I’ve written here does not begin to delve into the full extent of the institutional discrimination in the outdoor community or at SLU—a discourse which I hope will be ongoing and productive.
I write this article not in an attempt to justify our entire club’s existence, budget or history, but rather in an attempt to answer specific questions raised by a fellow student. We at the Outing Club house are sincerely interested in increasing our outreach, and expedition grants are an integral part of this ongoing mission.
If anyone has questions about the OC budget or mission, or wants to collaborate with our organization, please don’t hesitate to shoot me an email at lksull17@stlawu.edu.