During the initial allocations period that ended in early January, the Student Fee Committee, the Cultural Centers Committee and the Diversity and Multicultural Student Services deliberated on a new financial and administrative arrangement for PSU’s multicultural centers in the 2012–13 academic year.
During the initial allocations period that ended in early January, the Student Fee Committee, the Cultural Centers Committee and the Diversity and Multicultural Student Services deliberated on a new financial and administrative arrangement for PSU’s multicultural centers in the 2012–13 academic year.
The proposed changes include the creation of three new positions—coordinators for both La Casa Latina and the Native American Student and Community Center, and a Multicultural Center director to oversee them—as well as the incorporation of the budgets for La Casa Latina and the NASCC into the MCC budget.
“Our priority is to find the best structure possible in order to serve students better now that La Casa Latina is established,” said ASPSU Multicultural Affairs Director Victor Mena, who created and is a member of the CCC. “There is no way the MCC can continue to run the way it does now that there are new cultural centers on campus. We must thrive for more inclusive, more collaborative cultural centers.”
The changes would come with a higher price tag. With the recommended changes—which were proposed to the SFC by the CCC—the MCC’s proposed budget is $315,000. That figure represents a $74,000 increase over the current budget and is $17,000 more than the combined budgets proposed by the MCC, La Casa Latina and the NASCC themselves.
“Specifically, I understand the students want more coordination of all three cultural centers,” said Jackie Balzer, vice president of Enrollment Management and Student Affairs. “At this point, I believe the new model would help get more students involved with the centers. Cultural celebrations, personal development, student success and leadership development will increase.”
Since 1992, the MCC’s mission has been to ensure that multicultural students are successful in their college endeavors by providing a space on campus that operates as a support system by creating “a forum for collaborative cultural, educational and social experiences at Portland State and beyond,” according to its mission statement. The center is also dedicated to increasing retention rates and recruiting multicultural students and faculty.
In late 2009, Portland State President Wim Wiewel created a task force, ¡Éxito!, which was directed to recommend ways in which PSU can cater to the higher educational needs of the Latino community in the state of Oregon. The final report of the task force was published on June 2, 2010.
One of the ten recommendations of the task force was: “Create a Latino cultural center on campus that will house bilingual and bicultural academic advisors, Latina/o outreach staff, and Latina/o student groups; allocate temporary space for such a center now.”
That recommendation turned into La Casa Latina, which opened on June 8, 2011 and has been operating with a graduate assistant rather than a program coordinator at its helm.
“La Casa Latina was built without operational funding in place,” said Sean Green, a member of the SFC and CCC. “It is currently operating on a shoestring budget.”
Diversity and Multicultural Student Services approached the SFC this year to request that La Casa Latina become partially funded by the student fee. The department proposed that La Casa Latina become its own department that has its own student fee budget.
In response, the Cultural Centers Committee was created.
The CCC is comprised of several students who represent various associations and organizations on campus and is charged with making recommendations to the SFC regarding the cultural programs at PSU.
The committee’s first major recommendation was the new organizational and funding structure for PSU’s three campus multicultural centers.
The SFC allocation process for the 2012–13 academic year is still underway. After the final deliberations, which will take place from Feb. 6 to 18, the SFC will give their proposed budget to the Student Senate.
