The Leadership, Engagement, Activism and
known for helping students develop social and leadership skills outside of the
traditional classroom environment, was disbanded this year after its funding
was cut by the Registration Fee Advisory Committee in July.
“The pure and simple fact was that the cost associated with
the center exceeded the quality and quantity of the current programs offered,”
RFAC Chair Garo Bournoutian said in an e-mail.
The L.E.A.D. Center was created in the 2003-04 academic
year, when the original proposal for a Student Leadership Engagement and
Services Center was presented to RFAC, with a yearly operating cost of about
$65,000 — including one new staff member’s salary. However, the committee
reviewed the proposal and deemed that it failed to meet specific requirements,
saying it created an unnecessary overlap of leadership and communication
programs already provided by other organizations.
“Given these concerns, the RFAC of 2003-04 decided not to
fund the new SLES Center that year, but requested more information be provided
and further analysis done,” Bournoutian
said.
The next year, former Vice Chancellor of Student Affairs
Joseph W. Watson decided to advance the center’s development as a three-year
pilot program with temporary funding. At the end of the trial period, the
funding would have to be presented again to RFAC and the committee’s decision
regarding funding the center in future years would be final, Bournoutian said.
Although the original SLES concept proposed only one new
staff member, two additional staff members were hired for the center, nearly
doubling its yearly operating budget. At that point in time, SLES was renamed
L.E.A.D. and its mission statement and goals were redrafted.
Bournoutian said that the yearly operating total presented
to the committee last year totaled about $186,000, including staff member
salaries, pay for student interns, supplies and expenses.
“To put it in perspective, each year the committee is able
to provide no more than $200,000 total in permanent funds — funds that are
provided every year, as opposed to just one year,” he said.
However, he said that budgetary constraints were not the
only reason the program could not be funded, as the committee concluded that
costs associated with the center would be better spent enhancing similar
leadership-oriented programs.
Although the center was able to expand the Passport to
Leadership program — a series of free workshops designed to enhance and
maximize leadership skills — and make additions to other programs, Bournoutian
said the committee felt the magnitude of the new offerings was not enough.
Nevertheless, the committee agreed that some form of
leadership program should exist, and decided to provide about $60,000 to the
Center for Student Involvement — formerly called Student Organizations and
Leadership Opportunities — to fund some former L.E.A.D. programs for the new
fiscal year. RFAC also proposed moving the Express to Success program from
Revelle College to the student life department, since its objectives were
similar.
“The end results were to maintain all the programs offered
by L.E.A.D., save a substantial amount of money, and consolidate the
organizational structure of the various involvement, leadership, and
development offerings at UCSD to be more logical and less confusing to the
average student,” Bournoutian said. “There were many questions as to what the
differences were between these programs, and who to see for what purposes.”
Although the L.E.A.D. Center no longer exists, many of its
former programs have been adopted by CSI.
CSI Director Emily Marx said since her office has absorbed
some of L.E.A.D’s programs — including Passport to Leadership, which was a part
of CSI before L.E.A.D. was created — it has also received funding for one
additional full-time position. The department’s “leadership consultants” will
oversee quarterly projects involving campus communities such as transfer
students, or assembling a Martin Luther King service, Marx said.
Although some funds are being freed up by no longer
supporting L.E.A.D, the program was not in the RFAC’s permanent budget to begin
with, which minimizes the financial impact of cutting the center’s funding.
“Removing it did not give us our money back, but left our
funding pool at the same level,” Bournoutian said. “By reorganizing L.E.A.D.’s
programs back into CSI, we were able to keep almost all the benefits of
L.E.A.D., but have the money necessary to fund all these other worthwhile
programs, such as Psychological Services and Student Legal Services.”
Sixth College senior Arlene Velasquez, a participant in the
L.E.A.D. internship program, said she was sad to see it go.
“I was devastated when I heard the news that L.E.A.D. would
no longer be on the UCSD campus,” she said. “It was a very hands-on experience
to develop leadership skills.”
