Campus News

Stu­dent Coun­cil Raises Snow­ball Bud­get

 -  -  312


The Bethel Uni­ver­sity Stu­dent Coun­cil had their first meet­ing of the spring se­mes­ter Jan. 13 at 9 p.m. Af­ter prayer and roll call the stu­dent body pres­i­dent, Paul Cooke, dis­cussed up­dates to the dance. 

The dance which took place in­side Good­man Gym on Jan. 17 be­came a free event. Stu­dent coun­cil con­sid­ered hav­ing a meal swipe be an en­try fee into the dance, but Shawn Holt­gren, Bethel’s Stu­dent Life Di­rec­tor, sug­gested the event be free to draw in more stu­dents. 

“For the bud­get, some things have come out to be more ex­pen­sive than we have an­tic­i­pated,” said Ja­cob Kersey, the stu­dent coun­cil trea­surer. “We’re es­ti­mat­ing the en­tire cost of the event to come out to around $1500. So, what the ex­ec­u­tive coun­cil is do­ing is, we’re emp­ty­ing our en­tire bud­get, but that still leaves a $700 gap that we need.” 

Kersey pro­posed a vote to take the re­main­ing $700 out of the dis­cre­tionary bud­get. The dis­cre­tionary bud­get is used by the stu­dent coun­cil for un­ex­pected ex­tra costs and emer­gen­cies. The pro­posal passed unan­i­mously in a vote. Cooke said the coun­cil mem­bers will host a fundraiser to re­place the $700 bud­get gap. $1000 of the dance bud­get funded the light­ing and sound. The re­main­ing $500 cov­ered the costs of the dance in­struc­tor, food, dec­o­ra­tions and the DJ. 

“We could’ve been a lit­tle bit more fru­gal with our spend­ing,” Cooke said. “But this was what was re­quired for us to go through.” 

Kersey dis­cussed some of the rea­sons be­hind the bud­get-raise. 

“Bethel has a list of au­tho­rized and pre­ferred ven­dors, so we have to go down that list,” Kersey said. “If the first one can’t do it, then we go to the next one. So, we’re not re­ally al­lowed the lux­ury of shop­ping around for the best price.” 

The ven­dors on the list have pre­vi­ously part­nered with Bethel and they agree with the school’s in­ter­ests.  

Up­per­class­man Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Shelby Moody in­formed the coun­cil about their up­com­ing car­ni­val event on Jan. 31. She said the up­per-class com­mit­tee is brain­storm­ing ideas for games and buy­ing dec­o­ra­tions. So far, the team is spend­ing un­der bud­get. 

The car­ni­val event is tak­ing place from 7-10 p.m. and will be a free en­try for stu­dents. Moody said one of the booths at the event will en­tail throw­ing pies at pro­fes­sors. Each pie will cost a dol­lar and all the money will go to­wards a char­ity. 

Moody also said the up­per-class com­mit­tee is mak­ing slow progress on the se­nior gift. The se­nior gift is a mural on the win­dows of the prayer chapel. A lo­cal artist will paint the mural for a fee. 

“To­mor­row, I’m go­ing to the cre­ator’s house to … pick up col­ors for the de­signs and stuff, so that stu­dents can vote still,” Moody said. 

The un­der­class­men com­mit­tee re­ported they are talk­ing with James Metherd, gen­eral man­ager of Bethel din­ing ser­vices. The com­mit­tee is plan­ning a luau event and they want to know the costs for food. 

More de­tails about the coun­cil’s planned events will be re­leased in the com­ing weeks.