The three tier one organizations are collaborating together, having weekly meetings where they discuss events and are also planning a big event for Spring
In response to organizational budget cuts from Ohio University’s Student Appropriations Committee, the top three organizations on campus took this action as an excuse to collaborate together with events, budgets and manpower.
These organizations on campus are the International Student Union, University Program Council and Black Student Cultural Programming Board, which will now meet once a week, unofficially calling it “the big three” meetings.
This year, SAC cut funding by 20 percent for these three organizations, according to a previous Post report.
“It’s no problem that we have less,” Jeffrey Billingslea, president of BSCPB and junior studying political science, said. “We’re just trying to figure out ways to be even more strategic than the years past by collaborating with other student (organizations), collaborating with ‘the big three.’ ”
There are three tiers in which organizations on campus are classified. “The big three” receives about 60 percent of the SAC budget, while smaller organizations in tier two receive 20 percent and tier three clubs receive 7 percent, according to a previous Post report.
The purpose of these meetings are to discuss each event, help support each other if necessary and plan a signature event of the year for every student to participate in.
“We haven’t decided what the event will be exactly yet,” Kiley Landusky, president of UPC and a senior studying strategic communication, said. “But we want it to be something that will be more welcoming to international students, domestic students and multicultural students so that’s why we’re working together.”
Last year, these three organizations were a part of the Student Leaders Council organized by Jenny Hall-Jones, interim vice president of student affairs and dean of students.
Hashim Pashtun, president of the ISU and graduate student studying civil engineering, said the council was canceled because Hall-Jones did not have time for it with her new position as interim vice president of student affairs.
“This year there wouldn’t be any Student Leaders Council,” Pashtun said. “So I felt the need that these student leaders have to be in touch with each other and collaborate with each other.”
Pashtun said the weekly meetings will help utilize the time, money and productivity in order for their events to be more successful.
Pashtun said he did not want organizations to compromise the quality of events due to the budget cuts.
“Communication and coordination is one of the highest requirements for student leaders on campus because our students on campus is bigger, wider, diverse,” Pashtun said. “If you really want to attract more students to attend your event, if you really want to give them a better experience, you have to have more outreach.”
Billingslea said “the big three” are planning a signature event that will tie all three organizations’ participation and collaboration.
“The big three” also want to include more student leaders and organizations. Billingslea said they have already reached out to organizations such as Student Senate, Student Alumni Board and Greek life.
“We already have a good amount of students that turn out to our individual events, but having a bigger melting pot of students to come out to events and diversify the experience is really important,” Billingslea said.
Although “the big three” do not officially know what they want to do for their big spring event, Billingslea said it should be fun and that students should be looking forward to it.
“I hope we accomplish a bond that will be able to continue throughout our organizations for years to come,” Landusky said. “We’ve never really had an event that ties the big three together. Our goal this year is to do something that will make an impression last years from now.”
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