Throughout my time at college, I’ve been (loosely) involved in the Wooster art scene (whatever that is) in a few ways. I’ve been an editor for both The Goliard and The Artful Dodge. I’ve submitted work to the English department’s writing competitions. As of this year, I have a radio show on WOO 91.
By being involved in these groups, I’ve noticed a pattern that prevents them from growing. The administration tends to fail to provide these kinds of clubs with adequate resources, significantly hamstringing them. The administration then cites these clubs’ ineffectiveness as a reason to further cut their funding or to reject their appeals for more funding.
WOO 91 is just one example. At the beginning of this year, Dean of Students Scott Brown announced the administration’s plan to sell WOO 91’s FM license, stripping it of its status as a radio station and transitioning it to an online-only broadcast. During a panel in which the leadership of WOO 91 asked for the sale of the license to be put on hold, an administrator who used to work with the station briefly presented the case for taking WOO 91 off-air. They described the station as having “limped along” for a number of years, emphasizing that automated content — not student radio shows — takes up the majority of the airtime (of course it does; of course full-time students have limited time). Regardless, this discussion clarified that student groups like The Goliard or WOO 91 simply do not fit into the administration’s vision for the future of the College. They’re not a priority.
For a while now, one could describe The Goliard as “limping along,” but this fails to capture what’s going on. Last year, for the first time in three years, we scraped together the funds to print physical issues. This year, The Goliard has one fifth of the money it needs to print. Every year, The Goliard puts in a request for the bare minimum it needs, and every year, the allocations committee fails to grant these requests, hampering any growth that could have been possible.
If the administration wants to, they could do what they’ve done to WOO 91 to every student group that can be described as niche. They could completely defund The Goliard, citing the fact that it has struggled to print physical issues and has “limped along” since 2015. However, The Goliard has only limped along because the administration has failed to provide minimal resources. These groups aren’t priorities to the administration, so it’s perfectly happy to let them just slowly wither away.
This phenomenon is not unique to The Goliard. Despite having my tuition raised multiple times during my attendance, the allocations committee has underfunded every club I’ve joined. Maybe I’m just bad at choosing clubs, who knows? Regardless, in this small way, the administration has failed the students involved in these groups that provide a creative outlet. I know that the administration has the unenviable task of having to weigh costs and benefits in a brutal way. But still, the administration has failed.
Clubs like The Goliard and WOO 91 do not lack a dedicated group of students who want to make them work. Rather, they “limp along” because the people in charge of allocating resources have decided that they’re not worth trying to keep around. The Goliard and WOO 91 are great because of the determined, unique and wonderful people that are involved with them. These people work hard to keep these creative outlets around, but they can only do so much without adequate funding.
These organizations do not lack the enthusiasm they need to thrive. All they lack are concrete resources. Like any student group, WOO 91 and The Goliard need funding to survive. If the administration neglects these groups, the art scene at Wooster (again, whatever that is) will continue to struggle.
Daniel Sweat, an Contributing Writer for the Voice, can be reached for comment at DSweat19@wooster.edu.