St. Lawrence University’s student activities fund, which as it sounds supports student organizations and clubs on campus has been steadily doing just that for years. However, during this semester, it is far lower than it has been in prior years.
The SLUSAF currently sits at $30,020, standing in stark contrast to last year’s SLUSAF at this same time that hovered around $60,000. “This is due to standard club and organization operating requests being allocated to groups already, therefore leaving less funding available for contingency requests compared to other semesters,” explained Vice President for Student Life John Duraj.
One of the biggest reasons for this decrease is declining student enrollment at SLU. “The SLUSAF is funded through a $440 fee that is part of every single undergraduate student’s tuition,” said SLUSAF Central Treasurer Aaron James ’25. Student enrollment, especially for the first years this semester, is down quite a bit.
“This is the smallest first-year class at SLU in nearly 15 years,” said James.
This impacts clubs here at SLU, especially given the larger number of them this semester. “We did have, this year, more clubs asking for money, being reestablished, or meeting the threshold for a budget,” noted Senior Associate Director of Campus Activities and Residential Engagement and Director of the Sullivan Student Center Ashlee Downing-Duke. This is one of the central reasons, aside from the lower enrollment, that the SLUSAF for this semester is much lower than in prior years.
That said, there have not been many large contingencies coming through the THELMO Senate thus far. However contingency requests tend to pick up near the conclusion each semester based on the previous year’s trends. “It does seem that inevitably larger contingencies do come at a later date in the semester as clubs and organizations either look for funding for future events or are looking to be reimbursed for events that had already occurred,” noted Downing-Duke. That said the latter does not happen often.
Given the lower student enrollment, the per-student fee has seen an increase, “I’m of two minds about it, on the one hand, I’m opposed to being charged more for tuition and other fees said Patrick Russell ’26. “But then again given the drop in enrollment, if we have to pay a bit more to continue those important SLU traditions that add so much to the college experience, then maybe it is worth it,” said Russell. Given SLU’s small size, many of the traditions that we have on campus are so central to why people enjoy it here and for many, a small increase in fees is worth it to uphold that tradition.