I'm really glad this information is transparent. it would also be great to have the proposals themselves linked to the budgets, or at least make the primary expenses visible for groups with budgets over $500.

Anybody notice the difference between the Phoenix's budget and the DG's? Why does the Phoenix need to print more copies each week than students? I think it would be better for everybody if the Phoenix just became an online paper only. It's like they don't understand the new media market.

Also, it would be easier to redact their plentiful typos online.

Hold up, where's the money for football? If we can spend 25k on Forum for Free Speech and 10k for squash, then there has to be some room for the great American pastime. How do we expect Swarthmore students to cultivate an understanding of the relationship between sports and masculinity if we cannot act as men on this emasculating campus. Football is the pinnacle of the exercise of manhood, and we cannot understand gender without playing football.

I would be willing to serve as a club coach for one cheese steak a week. I will not donate money to Swarthmore again until we begin to fund football. We can hire Michael Vick as the assistant coach, as I hear there are many animals in the Crum that we need to eliminate from campus.

DG and SBC,
Thanks for this. It will serve as a reference for some time to come. I hope this is the beginning of a tradition, and will lead people first, to appreciate how good we've got it at swarthmore, and second, perhaps to have some insights into how it gets better from here.

That spreadsheet is a goldmine. Thanks for this reporting.

Movie committee is a black hole of money. Divide that 25,000 by movie attendance and I'd estimate that each viewing costs us about 50 dollars. 50 dollars to watch a pan-and-scan vhs copy of a movie that flashes "studio copy" every 5 minutes. I'm sure the administration likes this waste of money though, because tour guides and admissions get to say "oh, almost every weekend there are movie screenings of recently released movies--there's so much to do on campus other than partying!" Never mind that nobody actually goes to movie committee screenings. If the administration wants window dressing for our school they should be paying for it, not us. There has got to be a better way to spend that money--maybe some nice TVs and blu ray players for the dorms?

Also, LOLing at the Swarthmore "Objectivist Society"!

Well, TVs, it's clear at least that you don't go to the movie screenings. Because I do, and you're pretty much as wrong as it gets... they're pretty crowded, at least when it's a good movie. And they're not pan-and-scan vhs copies that flash "studio copy". In fact I've never seen that -- usually they're high quality copies (I don't know the media, but it never looks that bad), they get to us before the movie is released on DVD, and they're expensive because we have to get the license to show the movie.

To be fair, my experiences with movie committee is mostly negative -- they rejected my friend's application but encouraged him to reapply, and then rejected it again without reading it (in fact, calling him by the wrong name). Still, I'm generally in support of movie screenings and I think it's one of the better uses of the money.

Well TVs, I think you are clearly uninformed. First of all the movies that are screened need to pay a high license fee, not only those screened by the movie committee but any movie that is going to be screened publicly. This means any time a student group wants to show a film, the movie committee has to pay for the license. In fact this is how most of the committee's budget gets spent, and was not enough this year as to pay for all the licenses that were requested from it. Secondly, I think that just because you don't go to the screenings everyone else doesn't. Half of the time I've been there, the cinema has been quite full, and the campus in general seems to enjoy watching recent films in the cinema. Third, all dorms have T.Vs already, and there are classrooms for private movie watching, which makes new TVs and blue ray players quite unnecessary. I personally really enjoy the screenings, and think there are a lot more movie fans at Swat that appreciate watching recent movies in the cinema.
In regard to your experience with the movie committee Bob, let me tell you that the movie committee doesn't appoint people to the committee. That is done by the Appointment Chair and some other members of StuCo.

I'll respond.

I know that public screening of movies requires high license fees. I'm suggesting that these license fees might not be worth it when they work out to 20-100 dollars per person, which they do, I suspect, much of the time. I know some screenings are more popular, but I have been to several screenings with fewer than five people, and several more with fewer than ten. These are situations where it would probably be cheaper to hire a fleet of black limos, one for each person, and drive everyone out to a real movie theater in Springfield. Tickets, popcorn, and 40 oz. sodas on Movie Committee's tab! For a more realistic alternative to the fleet of black limos, the movie shuttle could be expanded and better advertised (little known fact! Swarthmore has a movie shuttle!)

"Watching recent movies in the cinema" is indeed an experience valued by many. It is an experience that movie committee screenings rarely compare to, due to room quality, projection quality, sound quality, and picture quality.

I would like to know exactly how many are served by movie committee screenings. Does movie committee keep track of how many people attend? SBC should really require some kind of documentation/accountability if they are going to continue to spend tens of thousands of dollars on these license fees.

And while all dorms do have TVs, many are 12-16 inch CRTs. What a joke. For about the price of each movie showing, we could buy a 32 inch HDTV and a blu ray disc player. Projectors in classrooms are, for most situations, not a good alternative to TVs in dorms. The only explanation I can think of for why we don't have decent TVs already is that it "rots the brain" and isn't suitable for classy intellectuals like us. I guess it is more progressive or something for us to be in our rooms with the doors closed watching YouTube.

Fight against snobbery. Fight for common space, and the common good. Fight for huge-ass TVs.

Let's say that Obama's health care reform is budget neutral. But most likely it would not solve the skyrocketing health care cost. The current system, which is a disastrous combination of employer-funded health insurance and government entitlement (which amount to HALF of medical expenditure), successfully masks the true cost of health care and leads Americans to believe that health care is a free benefit. When a third-party is paying for health care, customers as well as providers have few incentive to reduce costs and promote efficiency.
What we need is the introduction of market forces so as to 1) lead customers and providers to reduce waste and promote efficiency (managed care is a good example) and 2) defer political risk associated with the reform to the "invisible hand" rather than particular political groups.

Thus I suggest that the U.S.
1) move from employer-based insurance to individual insurance by phasing out its tax-exempt status
2) create a national health insurance exchange in which customers can compare different insurance policies
3) turn existing government entitlement programs (Medicare and Medicaid) into vouchers
4) promote Health Saving Account (HSA) and defined contribution plan
5) require insurance companies to accept everyone regardless of his/her pre-existing conditions; create high-risk compensation funds so as to reduce risk of enlisting high-risk customers

Democrats has achieved the universal coverage; it's time they (or their opponents) introduced cost saving mechanisms.

a week after graduation, and this STILL makes me so, so happy.

I am so sick of this woman already. All she's accomplished so far is to try to start a cult of personality around her supposed folksy midwestern roots. She wants so badly to be popular at her new school that she's been running around and poking her elvish face into every available photo and publicity opportunity.

"Hope amid clamor?" Which marketing firm did she pay (and how much) to come up with that one? The money spent on that slogan could have been better spent on financial aid or campus improvements. Cut the sloganeering and go accomplish something.

Let's get it!

This is bullshit. Once again, the administration makes budget cuts in the wrong places.

This is sad. War News Radio is one of the reasons I decided on Swarthmore.

they can't hold us down

WNR's strength is a credit to the tenacity of Swarthmore students. It would be a big mistake to let this program go. It's sad to hear about this because there are so many places where Swarthmore wastes so much money. Why aren't programs like this more of a priority?

35 hours a week? Sounds like it was asking to be cut.

@-'12

Careful. Somebody could say the same about your financial aid.

You will be missed! Thank you all for your help and support this year!

Porn is to feminism as the KKK is to black power. You might get off on it, but it is not "empowering".