In the first of many discussions, the Community Internship Program, an ASUO-funded group, met with a representative from the newly established Leadership Resource Office to discuss merging the programs in an effort to increase enrollment and keep CIP from closing down.
The CIP is an incidental fee-funded organization that offers students upper-division credit for volunteering in the community. Its enrollment rates have gone “into the red” this year after just breaking even last year, but CIP members will spend the next couple weeks looking into other options to continue offering the services of the program.
CIP members have not voted in favor of the merger, and won’t until group members can exhaust other avenues for funding, which currently comes from the College of Education.
CIP Executive Director Tiffany Larson said “we need to find out as much information as possible before that decision is made” so that all CIP members can have enough information to support a final decision. For now, she said, CIP will operate through this year and make changes, if necessary, for next year.
Diane Dunlap, Educational Leadership Program director and adjunct professor, said the current plan of the Leadership Resource Office is to take the various leadership-enhancing activities throughout the campus community, including the greek system, and put it into one organization, a sort of “synergy idea.” She said the new LRO plan is a process that University President Dave Frohnmayer has been advocating for several years.
David Feldberg, the marketing and events coordinator for CIP, asked several questions at a meeting on Tuesday night, and said he didn’t like the idea of getting rid of the CIP name and programming focus.
“We can keep that name alive,” Dunlap said, by adding the program as an LRO organization.
Feldberg expressed more concern over losing the program altogether, which would be a possibility if CIP course enrollment doesn’t increase.
“I believe we should maintain a student-run organization within the LRO,” he said.
The merger would continue to offer courses, headed by three graduate teaching fellows, but five stipend positions for undergraduates would be lost. Several CIP members expressed concern over these losses, but discussions on how to maintain the positions were postponed until a later meeting. Dunlap said those positions might be added back in future years if enrollment increases.
Assistant Director for Student Activities John Duncan said he was brought to the University to “build bridges across the campus community” and head the LRO, which was established in August.
He said he wants to support CIP in any way he can, but that so far he doesn’t know enough about the group to have a detailed plan.
One obstacle that the program faces is possibly losing ASUO funding. Because the LRO is an EMU-funded program, incidental fees allocated from the ASUO may be lost if the mission and goals statements and by-laws of the group alter.
Programs Administrator David Goward, representing the ASUO, said that if CIP is merged into the LRO, “it may not qualify for recognition and ASUO funding.”
“All ASUO funding is based on the fact that you’re a student-run organization,” he said.
“Any time you’re dealing with incidental fees and recognition, you really have to tread very lightly,” he added.
Because Duncan has been given adjunct professor status at the College of Education, Goward said it is possible for him to work as a faculty advisor, but allocation of the incidental fee or anything dealing with grievances and employee issues must go through him.
“What we will not put up with is a department from a different college coming in and telling a program what they have to do with their incidental fees,” Goward said.
This year CIP received $12,656 from the student-paid incidental fee budget. If it were to merge, Dunlap said more money would be requested by the ASUO in the future to bring back lost stipend positions.
Richard Malena, the CIP Associate Director and campus liaison, said he’s not a fan of the idea or the time it took to inform CIP members about the plans of the LRO and College of Education. After the meeting he said, “It’s a lot more pleasant that I thought it would be,” but that he still doesn’t like the options presented thus far.
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