Upon perusing the results of Zeitgeist 6.0, we noticed an interesting change from last year’s results: Middlebury students now rate student organizations as more important than outdoor recreation, with more respondents indicating a higher level of value placed on clubs than time outdoors.
While the typical image of a student here may conjure visions of hiking the full TAM, tossing around a frisbee on a sunny, lazy Sunday afternoon or diving into the Gorge, student organizations are essential to the fabric of our school community. However, what is not crucial are layers of bureaucracy surrounding our student organizations.
Respondents to this year’s Zeitgeist survey overwhelmingly expressed dissatisfaction with the Student Activities Office (SAO). Sixteen percent of respondents were extremely dissatisfied with the SAO, while 23% were somewhat dissatisfied and just 7% were very satisfied with the organization. These numbers of dissatisfaction have only grown in recent years – 15% of respondents reported extreme dissatisfaction with the SAO in 2023 and 8% in 2022. At the same time, 44% of respondents to this year’s survey rated student organizations as a four or a five on a scale of 1-5 in terms of their importance to respondents’ lives on campus.
As this discrepancy between SAO satisfaction and club enthusiasm shows, the systems in place are complex and ill-suited to the dynamic nature of our student body. We call on the college to reconsider how to increase flexibility in creating, operating and funding organizations to nurture student interests. Zeitgeist has shown that the enthusiasm exists for student organizations to play a crucial role on campus — let’s seize that opportunity to reconsider how they may best be utilized in the future.
In theory, the SAO provided an equal opportunity for all student organizations to raise funds through the Join the Club initiative. In practice, however, the initiative required jumping through complicated bureaucratic hoops and schmoozing with alumni to get donations. It worked unequally in favor of clubs with wealthy students and club alumni, and forced students to take on the extra burden of advertising and fundraising on top of their academic responsibilities and work for their student organizations.
The Office of Advancement is working tirelessly to raise $600 million for its For Every Future Campaign, launched in October 2023. While the campaign plans to direct funds toward the so-called goals of “access,” “academic excellence,” “experience” and “annual giving,” nowhere in it are funding student organizations referenced as a priority of the campaign. Why is the college focused on funding programs at Bread Loaf and the Middlebury Institute of International Studies, while students are forced to panhandle their parents and alumni just to fund student organizations right here on campus?
Many students have described feeling frustrated by a seemingly never-ending process in which it feels that though the SAO’s default is to say no to requests, rather than welcoming new ideas. The issue has been worsened by the implementation of a three-tier system for club sports funding, which limits the amount of funding granted to some club sports. Two recent op-eds cited lack of funding as an essential argument used by the SAO, especially given the fact that new clubs can only be allotted up to $1,000. But what about student investment? The student activity fee is $500. Other areas of tuition have tangible effects — $67,100 goes towards our education and $19,250 goes towards our housing and meals. Where are the benefits of the student activities fee? We are glad that large, successful club sports, such as crew and frisbee, receive consistent funding, but a diversity of well-funded student organizations is vital to a vibrant campus life.
We believe that the student relationship with the SAO should be collaborative and enthusiastic, not adversarial and discouraging, as it sometimes feels currently. Anecdotes abound of punitive actions against organizations and the lingering threat of adding leftover debts to the tuition bill of any given organization’s treasurer. While we understand that not every request can get approved, and many of the SAO’s policies are necessary and reasonable to run an organized system, the college should allocate more resources to matching student enthusiasm and giving our clubs the necessary financial support. Middlebury teaches us to dream big — why can’t it fund those dreams?
It often falls on the leaders of these organizations to do the administrative work of their clubs and advocate fiercely for their events, travel, transportation, fundraisers and more. We are not blind to the reality of the other side, however. The college must provide more staff members to address the growing demand for student clubs. Just as it is unfair for student leaders to shoulder such a heavy burden, so too do we have sympathy for those in SAO who are overwhelmed by the day-to-day management of a bureaucratic, dysfunctional system that seems a relic of a different era — a different Middlebury, even.
At the heart of this issue — and arguably at the heart of Zeitgeist — is what kind of community we envision this college to be. In ten years time, students here will likely still be hiking the TAM, or tossing around a frisbee on Battell Beach. Now is the time to consider whether student organizations can continue to grow and thrive at the college, or if they will fade into the background in the whirlwind of our four years here.
