Weybridge funds come under scrutiny

Author: Tess Russell

On Nov. 17, the Community Council deliberated on two motions that could effectively determine the fate of Weybridge House, an academic interest house which receives substantial funding (approximately $25,000 annually) from the College to provide local, sustainable and organic food to the College community.

The economic crisis that has plagued the nation - and the College's endowment - over the past several months has already affected Middlebury's student body in tangible ways. In the coming year, institutional cutbacks that began with a hiring freeze on new faculty and the cancellation of Winter Term trips will begin to affect student life even more directly.

"The first thing to go in the reality of this financial crisis has to be the luxuries - as it is, we barely have the money to pay faculty salaries," said Student Co-Chair of Community Council Antoinette Rangel '09. "Cuts to Weybridge's funding will be a huge detriment to the College, because everyone here loves the house and they do such great things, but they are not germane to Middlebury's existence."

Other academic interest houses on campus - a group comprised of the Queer Studies House, Palana House and all of the College's foreign language houses - receive annual budgets of $900. In light of recent financial tightness, Weybridge House submitted a revised budget that would allow them to fulfill their mission on $5,000 fewer per annum.

"They were amazingly proactive in their proposal," said Council member Abigail Blum '08.5. "To my knowledge, no other house or organization has shown that sort of initiative."

For all the expenses incurred in cooking socially and environmentally "responsible" cuisine, Weybridge House's food budget is still less than the sum of the dining refunds its residents would receive from their comprehensive fees if they were considered "special" students. (Because Weybridge House is considered on-campus housing, this concern is a hypothetical one, but was still explored in Council meetings.)

"We do cook food to order so that if something is not cooked, the raw ingredients can go into something else later - they are not wasted or considered 'leftovers,' wrote Director of Dining Services Matthew Biette in an e-mail. "With fewer than 20 inhabitants of Weybridge House, you can see that they do not tip the scale greatly one way or another."

For her part, Rangel expressed concern that the disparity in funding is an innate reflection of the College's "extreme" preference for some aspects of its mission statement (environmental initiatives) over others (diversity, for example). Furthermore, she acknowledged the unfeasibility of relying on joint initiatives as a blanket solution to the unequal budgets.

"The issue is equity," said Rangel. "There are plenty of cultural organizations that would love to have the opportunity to cook. Weybridge has done a great job coordinating events in their house with other groups, like 'Gaybridge,' but a friend of mine is part of the African American Alliance, and if they want to cook fried chicken at one of their events - well, that may not be local, sustainable and organic, but should they be confined to the Weybridge way of life?"

Blum countered that inequality of funding does not necessarily reflect preferential treatment by the College of one organization or institutional goal.

"The issue here is what different groups need to achieve their mission statements," she said. "Think about an academic situation: a physics class may require a lot of expensive lab equipment to meet its goals, while a political science class has inherently lower operating costs. The residents of Weybridge House are not living frivolously - they are feeding hundreds of people for $824 over two weeks."

The first of two motions brought before the Council - which proposed to make funding for all academic interest houses equal - failed, with six members voting for it, nine members opposing and two abstaining. The Council passed the second motion, which recommended that no more than $5,000 be cut from Weybridge House's budget, with eight members supporting, six opposing and three abstaining.

However, as Acting Dean of the College Gus Jordan explained, honoring the Council's recommendation may not be possible.

"The Budget Oversight Committee will have to evaluate potential cuts to many excellent programs and projects, and not every organization or program will get all that they want or need," wrote Jordan in an e-mail. "Thus, all of us need to be both realistic (recognizing that we have fewer resources ... than we did even a few months ago) and innovative (looking for far less costly ways to advance our objectives)."