On Thursday afternoon, Interim Vice Chancellor for Student Life Frank Cuevas and the Division of Student Life held a virtual Student Programming and Services Fee information workshop via Zoom. More than 35 people, students and faculty alike, were in attendance.

This event is just one in a long series of discussions and workshops held with the goal of creating a reliable student programming system. SPSF is a fee paid by students each semester and used to fund student programming. However, after the Student Programming Allocation Committee was officially disbanded in 2019, much conversation has occurred around the SPSF and how to properly allocate its funds to student organizations.

This semester, Cuevas has held multiple listening sessions about SPSF, launched a survey on the subject and met with leaders across campus in order to uncover a system that works for all.

Cuevas, who set his Zoom background to a sunset photo of the Pedestrian Walkway bridge over Phillip Fulmer Way, began by explaining that the Division of Student Life has invested so much time in this issue because of the way that campus was suffering under the confusing programming guidelines.

“It seemed like people were submitting programming ideas and suggestions, and no one knew what was happening and that is a commitment that we made, that we’re gonna make this better, a better process for everyone to understand from the standpoint so that we can actually keep programs,” Cuevas said. “We lost speakers, we lost bands, we lost you name it because we were making decisions too far too late, and at the end of the day what ends up suffering is the quality of our academic program, the qualities of the programs we were offering.”

The Division of Student Life has revised and simplified the student programming suggestion form, as well as increased communication among all UT community members in order to ensure that information about student programming was more clear. This was particularly prevalent in aiming to ensure that smaller student organizations were being heard; the issue of representation for smaller organizations was consistently mentioned during the listening tour..

“Our small student organizations were feeling like they were being left out, that they didn’t know where to go when they needed support to help partner with our student life units to be able to have programming geared toward their specific needs,” Cuevas said.

Cuevas’ team also created a Student Programming Advisory Board, which is comprised of students appointed by the vice chancellor for student life who give feedback on student programming policies.

Next, Blake Weiss, coordinator of special projects for the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Student Life, broke down the results from the SPSF interest survey. The most popular type of programming was entertainment, with comedians, performers and dance being the most popular within the category. In terms of speakers and lecturers, students were most interested in academics, science and mental health. For cultural and multicultural events, race/ethnicity/nationality, arts/music/dance and celebrations/holidays were the most popular categories.

For events relating to gender and sexuality, health and well-being, women’s empowerment and women’s issues were the most popular categories.

Additionally, the survey indicated the positive effect that programming has held on students’ lives; 75.60% of respondents said they feel more connected to UT because of student programming, and 59.31% said that student programming incites them to want to stay at UT.

“Nearly 74% of respondents indicated that the planning and organizing again positively contributed to their personal growth at UT, so not necessarily just the learning but then also the personal growth, the critical thinking skills, the sense of belonging, the connections that you make with friends who are part of of these organizations with you,” Weiss said. “They certainly have a really positive impact, so I think this speaks to just the importance of programming and just engaging students in programming in all the capacities that we can.”

Weiss added that the necessity of food was mentioned several times in the survey’s results.

“It really spoke to the importance of battling food insecurity among undergraduate students and graduate student populations on campus, and so I think those are some things that we need to think about as the Division of Student Life, is prioritizing food for programming not just to get people there and attending, but also to combat some of the food insecurity issues that are being brought up around colleges and universities across the country,” Weiss said.

Weiss then discussed the timeline for creating upcoming programs. The online form to suggest fall programs opened on April 3, and the priority deadline to submit a program suggestion is May 15. Programs selected from this cohort will be slated in by May 22. From July 1 to Sept. 1, the Division of Student will open standard program submissions for fall 2020. The selected events will be slated in by Sept.7. Acceptance dates for spring 2021 priority and standard programming recommendations have not yet been decided.

Cuevas added that these dates may change in response to COVID-19.

Forms can be submitted by both members of registered student organizations and all other students. Students should receive a confirmation email that the form was received after submitting it. Although this is not currently in place, the Division of Student Life is also discussing attaching the form to VOLink, the online infrastructure that manages UT’s organizations.

Weiss also laid out two scenarios as an example of how students can decide to submit the form. In scenario one, student organizations can collaborate on their programming ideas and examine the SPSF timeline to determine when to submit their idea. The organization should also identify a Student Life office, such as the Center for Student Engagement, which can help them submit the form. Student organizations are currently required to partner with a Student Life department to receive program funding, although Cuevas mentioned that this policy needs to be changed in the future.

If the organization has collaborated with the CSE in creating the program, that should be noted on their suggestion form.

A student life office representative will reach out to each organization to inform them if their program was accepted. The CSE will work with organizations to help plan accepted programs.

In the second scenario, an individual student can submit their program idea without a student organization and should determine when to do so by consulting the SPSF timeline. If the program is accepted, the VCSL will reach out to a Student Life department to allocate funds for the program. Student Life will also reach out to the individual student who submitted the idea, as well as organizations who may be interested in partnering on the program, for further planning.

Forms can be submitted by faculty members, but funds are only allocated to student programming.

The meeting concluded with questions fielded from attendants and an exchanging of contact information between fellow campus leaders and Student Life faculty.