Claire Montgomery
Senior News Writer
A search for a new assistant director for Student Organizations has failed for the second time over a period of ten months. While the search had initially seemed promising, candidates have withdrawn last minute from the process. The complication is one of many issues surrounding Lowry Center and Student Activities (LCSA), specifically that organizations find communicating with LCSA difficult and that groups who ap- pealed their budgets in the spring of 2019 have yet to hear back.
When asked about why student organizations have not heard back about appeals, Julia Zimmer, director of LCSA, said that she did not have a good excuse.
“It was not an intentional thing,” Zimmer stated. “It really comes down to lack of time, and I will also add that we don’t have good systems in place for student organizations. Appeals has their own SharePoint. Those bud- gets transfer from three different SharePoints in LCSA. Besides the lack of time, part of it is not having things all in one place. For a lot of schools in higher education, their departments have central processes that streamline procedures,so we are trying to advocate for that[here at Wooster].” Zimmer, however, did explain that “there was a lot of miscommunication in the appeal process in the spring.
You have the budget that was voted upon and sent to you. We would never take money away.”
The issues that students are experiencing were raised to the Board of Trustees on the Student Development Committee (SDC) during a meeting with student organization leaders on Oct. 25. Two different groups, Chemistry Club and the Wooster Christian Fellowship, partnered to discuss concerns as reported in the Nov. 1 issue of the Voice. Jamia Christensen ’96 chair of SDC said’ “Specific to Student Activities, we heard from several organizations expressing concerns related to the responsiveness of staff, issues with the funding process and access to resources for their organizations. The Commit- tee was concerned about the issues raised related to Student Activities, as we want every student and student organization to thrive at the College. To help address these concerns in a more direct way, our committee asked the Student Government Association (SGA) to invite a representative from the administration to observe the meeting so that the Student Af- fairs Division would be immedately aware of the issues raised by students.
When asking Dean of Students Scott Brown about the SDC meeting, he explained that the role of the meeting is for the Board of Trust- ees to get a sense of the questions and concerns that students have when they are on campus. Brown explained that the Board’s role is “fiduciary, and that they are mak- ing decisions to make sure that Wooster is still here in 150 years.” However, while student groups bring concerns to the Board, Brown said that the responsibility to change things for the better lies with the administration instead. Moreover, Brown said, “Before the Student Development meeting, I will have a prep meeting with the Trustees and say that these are the kinds of things that you are probably going to be hearing, and then they [send] a report out to the rest of the Board where they talk about all of the issues that came up. But where the real action happens and where the rubber hits the road comes back to folks like me and others that are working on campus.”
“The Trustees left the student meeting deeply impressed with all the student representatives who spoke with us,” Christensen stated. “Students were passionate and thoughtful about the issues they raised and each group came well-prepared for the meeting. SDC is always a highlight of our time on campus and this year was no exception. We look forward to hearing from more students at our February meeting.”
When asked about what the mechanisms for change are, since everyone seems to already be aware of issues with LCSA with few resolutions, Brown pointed to the ongoing search for an assistant director of Student Organizations. He spoke to the number of hours and resources it takes for the oversight of student organizations to run smoothly, saying that it is “human resource intensive” and that Zimmer has “been doing essentially three jobs” which is why it is so critical to have somebody in the assistant director position. He also stated that the software used to process requests by groups, funding and purchasing are complicated, so they are trying to get a system in place to make it more streamlined and accessible, while also maintaining “integrity and security.”
Brown recognized that what LCSA really lacks is human pow- er, but that such a request is com- plicated because “to train some- one to do [the work in LCSA] is not an insignificant thing, because they need to have access and un- derstanding of our student information systems.” Brown is “try- ing to put together some sort of temporary thing to pull people in to help for Student Activities.” He explained that he has borrowed two administrative staff members to help out with LCSA. Moreover, because the College has so far been unsuccessful in the search process for a new assistant director, Brown said that they are now “looking for a short-term person” and that the College “can’t gamble anymore on not having that search filled.”
Additionally, Brown acknowl- edged the hard work that Zimmer is doing. He said that Zim- mer recently won an award at the Latinx Gala “for her support
with OLAS and Latinas Unidas. I know she has been spreading herself very thin to support students for a long time, and despite some very unfortunate, compounding turns of events, able to continue to do some real good.”
“There’s nothing I want to do more than help student organi- zations be successful,” Zimmer said. “But I don’t know if every- body really realizes how much is on my plate. But people don’t want to hear that. They just want things to get done. Which is right — they deserve that.”