Community Impact Awarded $20,000

Provost Alan Brinkley has awarded Community Impact $20,000 to be used for service learning fellowships for students.

Community Impact, whose leaders had voiced concerns about cuts made to their budget in this year’s club allocations, said it hopes use the windfall to compensate for underfunded areas within the board. CI held a town hall Tuesday night at which committee executives gathered feedback on how best to distribute the new grant.

“The Provost has been a strong supporter of CI for some time, as has Chaplain Jewelnel Davis who also works with the Executive Director. The proposal for additional support was strong, well-prepared and described a way in which additional resources could have an expanded impact,” wrote vice provost Roxie Smith in a statement.

At the town hall, program coordinators gathered in groups to discuss various ways to allocate the money to students. “The purpose [of the town hall] was to make sure we were going to do this with participation and communication,” Allie Feldberg, CC ’08 and one of Community Impact’s student executives, explained.

Some of the discussion surrounded how to divide the sum, while other students discussed whether or not projects funded by the fellowships should be limited to within the New York City area or be expanded to projects abroad. Students considered ways to advertise the fellowships to make them more accessible and gathered inspiration by looking at other universities’ fellowships.

Community Impact receives a fourth of its $1 million budget from the University, with the rest coming from fund-raising and other efforts. As of last February, Community Impact recognizes 25 groups and has faced difficulty in adding more from lack of funds and resources.

“Community Impact is in perpetual financial crisis,” Sakib Khan, CC ’07, last year’s Student Governing Board chair, said last semester.

After the council-run Funding At Columbia University board decreased its allocation to Community Impact by 12 percent, six members of CI’s Student Executive Committee submitted two proposals to Brinkley in early May hoping to get funds. The first was an expansive proposal about CI’s relationship to the Columbia community. The second was a more detailed proposal about providing service learning fellowships to Columbia students.

The board hopes that the fellowships will provide valuable public service experiences to students.

CI’s student executives expressed their satisfaction with the Provost’s response. “It’s recognition of service learning and the impact it has for students,” Feldberg said. The student executives emphasized that the sum does not come from student life fees and will not be used as part of CI’s programming budget.

The purpose of the fellowships will be the “funding of public service through CI,” as John Gardner, CC ’08, put it.

The board hopes to have a concrete application process for the additional funds as soon as possible.

Former Engineering Student Council President Dan Okin, SEAS ’07, and former Columbia College Student Council President Seth Flaxman, CC ’07, helped CI set up its first meeting with Brinkley last spring.

“Seth and I were really just talking and noticing that Community Impact was struggling as a governing board,” Okin said. “All Seth and I did was suggest to the provost that he meet with Community Impact.”

The proposals were reviewed over the summer, and the student executives were notified of their approval at the end of the summer.

“This goes to show that if you’re really thoughtful and present yourself professionally, people will listen,” Feldberg said. “This was our biggest success last year.”

Ivy Chen can be reached at ivy.chen@columbiaspectator.com.