This Wednesday, Oct. 7, Columbia’s President and CEO Shantay Bolton will address faculty and staff at the annual State of the College address.
Last year, at her first address as president, Bolton announced that the college’s budgeted deficit had climbed to $40 million, up from $24 million the previous year.
The college is now projecting an $18 million deficit for this fiscal year, a more than 50% reduction after faculty and staff layoffs and other cost-cutting measures.
We asked students on Columbia College’s campus about what would make them more confident in Columbia’s future and what they hope won’t change
TRANSCRIPT:
0:11: Welcome back to Chronicle Chronversations.
0:14: I’m your guest host, Anna Bitz.
0:17: This Wednesday, Oct. 7, Columbia’s President and CEO Shantay Bolton will address faculty and staff at the annual State of the College address.
0:26: Last year, at her first address as president, Bolton announced that the college’s budgeted deficit had climbed to $40 million up from $24 million the previous year.
0:37: The college is now projecting an $18 million deficit for this fiscal year, a more than 50% reduction after faculty and staff layoffs and other cost cutting measures.
0:48: We asked students on Columbia College’s campus about what would make them more confident in Columbia’s future and what they hope won’t change.
0:56: What do you hope does not change here at Columbia?
1:00: I hope that they don’t cut any more programs or merge any more programs in kind of awkward ways.
1:06: I feel like there were, over the past few years that I’ve been here, a lot of interesting decisions that were made to, I guess, benefit overall, but kind of did a bit more harm than good.
1:18: More access to different types of classes, cause I feel like the classes get filled up too much, and then the classes that other people really need, they just can’t take,
1:27: and it affects graduating on time.
1:29: Build a better
1:31: relationship from teachers to students.
1:34: I feel like my experience at Columbia, especially being in larger classes with 20 to 30 students, it’s kinda hard to build that dynamic between the student and teacher.
1:47: One thing I hope doesn’t change at Columbia is the access to the labs on campus, like the DPC and the fashion facility.
1:56: Students spend a lot of their time with assignments up there and the hours have been cut this year, I realized, so having access to those facilities would, and has always, made my experience at Columbia a better place.
2:08: I hope that Columbia maintains an environment for artists and students to be artists first.
2:16: The resources for the students, I think they’re great.
2:19: I think there’s a lot for different majors, whether it’s mental health or tutoring, I think the resources all around are pretty great.
2:29: I wouldn’t want the inclusivity and the sense of community to change.
2:34: We have so many things going on on campus, like Manifest, we have so many workshops for students that are completely free, we have so many displays that students can be a part of, stuff like that. So I would think that’s one of the biggest parts of Columbia.
2:47: I’m Anna Bitz.
2:48: Thanks for listening.
Copy edited by Venus Tapang
Additional reporting by Serenity Burgos, Naomi Ashkenazy, Evie Gallavan, Lindsay Carter-Early, Julia Martinez Arroyo, Sofía Oyarzun, Ava Simone Forster and Kelly Parker.
