Pinching Pennies at a small school...

If you're like me, you work at an institution with less than 2,000 full-time students. In fact, the number at my institution is floating between 1700 and 1800 right now.  To prevent my other readers from losing interest in this blog, let me preface by saying, "Hey, this might apply to you, as well!"

Anyhow, some of us work at smaller institutions and are oftentimes challenged to overcome significant budget shortcomings year after year. Because of our already small budget, these "shortcomings" are truly noticeable and downright frustrating at times.

So, how do we battle these shortcomings?  How do we pinch our pennies, so to speak?

1. We co-sponsor.  A few months back I blogged about the importance of co-sponsorships with events on our campus. Co-sponsorships enable our students to plan great events and assures that we'll have the money available since the cost is being split between more than one group's budget. At my institution, we are soon holding a very large Casino Night event that is pooling resources from four different organizations - the Alumni Association (paying for food), the Student Activities Board (paying for the casino games & prizes), and our Resident Student Council and Student Government Association (splitting the cost for live entertainment/band).

2. We "create" our own events.  Instead of paying expensive agencies to come in and host large-scale events, such as game shows and other such events, we do our best to create our own.  A colleague of mine at another small institution has gone as far as creating his own "cheap" - but effective - versions of Wheel-of-Fortune, Jeopardy, and Deal or No Deal. 

3. Take advantage of community events & community partnerships.  Many times this will depend on your location and seasonal temperatures.  Anyhow, if your town has an annual Festival of sorts - let's say, a pumpkin/fall-themed festival - take advantage of this "FREE!" activity. Perhaps, all you need to do is promote it to your students and provide transportation... and, viola! - a very low-cost event.  Plus, very minimal effort on your part.

What else do you all do to "pinch pennies"?

Comments

[Tom Krieglstein]

If I combine my time as a student leader on programming board and my time on the professional side as a trainer, I have a total of 8 years of working within/around student activities. In all that time, I have never heard someone say, "We have a budget surplus." In fact I am pretty sure every year/month/day I hear someone say, "Well money is tight..."

My question is, doesn't it get old? Doesn't it get old to have to keep using Budget Cuts as an excuse to not being able to deliver good programming?

I like this post because what you are saying is let's just get over the fact that money is tight now, and will always will be. And you offer a paradigm shift for SA.

It is like someone saying they are going on a diet, only to stop two weeks later and go back to the same eating habits. If you are truly going to go on a diet, it is not a one time thing, it has to be a lifestyle shift for the rest of your life.

So maybe we need to take Brain's advice and instead of thinking that someday the money is going to start flowing in, have a student activities life style shift and do programming that works with our budget and be excited about that instead of complaining about budget cuts.

p.s. In rereading my comments, I am not sure the diet analogy works here, but I'm going to leave it up to hear what others think.

[Del Suggs]

You may be aware of these templates, but I wanted to post them for everyone else: http://teach.fcps.net/trt10/PowerPoint.htm
This link has templates for you to develop your own powerpoint based versions of both "Jepardy" and "Who Wants To Be a Millionaire?". It's a great way to create an instant DIY program, if that's all you have to work with.