Small Schools, Large Problems
Leaders at smaller schools face issues that larger schools don't
By Santiago Sanz, University of Florida

It’s your first year in college and you want to involve yourself in as many student activities and clubs as possible. There’s only one problem: the student population is a whopping 2,000 or less. Yes, attending a smaller school has many benefits: the classes are smaller so student-teacher relationships are more personal, there’s a sense of community among students, and most faculty members have open-door policies.

However, smaller schools face problems that larger schools don’t. Whether it’s less money, student participation problems, or less school spirit, smaller schools find they can’t compete with the resources of larger schools. So what are these schools doing to help their situation?

Money Crunch
Every small school deals with money problems. Fewer students equal less student activities fee for the school. With nowhere to turn, students have decided to take matters into their own hands.

Cara Pisciotta, executive vice president of Student Government at the College of Mount Saint Vincent in New York, says that club members feel neglected due to the lack of money their clubs receive. With a student population of 2,000, the SG has a limited amount it can disperse to the clubs. “If we have a set amount of money and 12 clubs, we have to be careful what clubs we give money to,” Pisciotta says. “You don’t want to give one club more than the other.”

Pisciotta says her school’s SG is usually blamed for school budget problems. Pisciotta says nobody’s ever satisfied with the amount of money they receive. To make students better understand, Pisciotta diagrams a breakdown of the school budget. In doing so, students see how restricted the SG is, and clubs can better understand that the problem rests within the school’s budget and not within the SG. Despite her efforts, Pisciotta is not always successful. “[The clubs] get mad at us or whoever else they see fit to unleash their wrath on,” she says.

As a way to resolve the predicament, students at Mount Saint Vincent use fundraisers to help raise money. If a club needs funds for an event, but is unable to receive all of it from SG, the club will simply have a bake sale, garage sale, or car wash to raise the extra money.

With only $44,000 at its disposal for 8,500 students, the University of Miami’s SG finds itself dealing with the same budget problems as small schools. By comparison, the University of Florida’s SG has $1 million per 8,000 students.

UM’s SG approaches the problem by finding sponsors to fund their ideas. For example, SG’s “Bookstore Rewards Program”—provided by UM’s Department of Auxiliary Services—supplies 4.0 GPA students with discount cards. On Saturday nights, IBIS Ride, UM’s “Safe Ride Program,” provides free shuttle rides to and from Coconut Grove—a local college hangout with many bars. UM’s Student Affairs office sponsors the program making it possible for students to have safe transportation when partying.

Two Places At Once
In order to keep clubs and campus events in existance, students at small schools often over-commit themselves in different clubs. “Student’s are not limited to playing one role on campus; they are needed and encouraged to play multiple roles,” says Amy Vroom, Student Forum president at Dordt College in Iowa.

Vroom says over-commitment by students and faculty is Dordt’s biggest problem. Since Dordt’s 1,400 students take on multiple roles, planning a campus event can be problematic. “In order to plan a campus event, the community calendar must be consulted; chances are that if something is already scheduled, at least some students will be involved in both activities,” Vroom says.

Time management techniques are essential where high participation is required. Webber International University, in Florida, gives Wednesdays off to its 500 students in order to reduce schedule conflicts, provide time for studying, allow opportunity to hold group meetings, give traveling athletes time to complete schoolwork, and give professors a chance to catch up. “It’s a great system in which it allows a lot of pressure to be lifted from the students,” says Cindy Pittsburgh, Tourism Club president.

The Spirit Blues
Since athletics at small schools usually play a minor role, if any at all, students find it difficult to identify with their college. The social activities commonly associated with big sporting events are used by most schools to maintain a bond between new students, old students, and alumni. Without that bond, small schools often suffer from low school spirit.

SGA Vice President Malcolm Greene from Marymount Manhattan College in New York, says not having a sports teams for the school’s 2,600 students causes leaders to work much harder in order to raise spirit. “When you look at other colleges that do have these sports teams, it is much easier for them to use sports as a central gathering factor,” Greene says.

Compared to larger schools, where homecomings include football games and parades, students at Marymount celebrate homecoming with alumni gatherings.

Instead of football and basketball games, Greene says his school hosts as many student-related events as possible. Among these include the “Strawberry Festival”—their end-of-the-spring-semester street festival—and “Snowball”—their winter formal event. But Green says the turnout for the student events is directly related to advertising. “Not only do we have to do more advertising, but we also have to try to be very diverse in the types of adverting we do,” he says. “It’s very time-consuming. We work quite hard.” According to Greene, last semester’s “Snowball” attendance was a disappointment due to a lack of advertisement. “As a result, the event had an unusually low turnout as compared to that of Snowballs in previous years,” Greene says.

Whether it’s little money, over-commitment, or low spirits, smaller schools are learning how to overcome these vices. Leaders at small schools are turning these weaknesses into strengths and teaching leaders at larger schools a thing or two about self-reliance.

Santiago Sanz, 23, was born in Valencia, Spain. At the tender age of 5, he moved to the United States with his parents, and He did not learn how to speak English until age 6. He is now a senior in magazine journalism and minor in English at the University of Florida. Sanz hopes to one day become a publisher of his own national magazine. Currently, he interns with Student Leader. Contact Sanz at santiago@studentleader.com.

Contact Vroom at myvrm@dordt.edu, Pittsburgh at cindyvb@aol.com, Pisciotta at (718) 304-2354, or Greene at (718) 547-6718.

Copyright © 2005 Oxendine Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved