The Funding Analysis Committee for the Blugold Commitment has approved to continue funding for several multi-year proposals, but has also decided to discontinue or suspend five of the multi-year programs.

At the Student Senate meeting on Monday, Academic Affairs Director Jacob Bernardy gave a presentation about the decisions. Bernardy mainly focused on programs that were suspended or cancelled after the Funding Analysis Committee looked over revised proposals  that were submitted to them.

The Student Research and Design Center’s Blugold Commitment funding has been suspended for the 2012-13 year. This is because the project has been unable to find physical space to put the research center. Funding that wasn’t used in the previous year was also taken back.

“They’ll be moving forward during the next cycle, hopefully with a spot to actually function,” Bernardy said.

Effective July 1, the Immersion Experience to Istanbul and Anatolia will be discontinued. It was decided by the Funding Analysis Committee that the cost of the program was still too high for students, Bernardy said.

“The dollar amount per student was higher than we’d hoped to be accomplishing,” he said. “It’s a great immersion and we’re hoping to see a revised proposal at some point in the future, but right now this model just isn’t functional … with that price tag on it.”

The Funding Analysis Committee decided to take back funding that wasn’t used for the Infusing High Impact Educational Practices into Mathematics Service Courses program, and suspend the program for one or two years, after which they can come back with a revised proposal, Bernardy said.

Due to  having had a high number of retirements over the past year, the mathematics department now has almost as many new faculty members as it does returning faculty, so it has been tough for them to develop new projects, Bernardy said.

Funding for the Social Justice Living-Learning Community will be discontinued, effective July 1, because the program is having a hard time filling seats,  Bernardy said.              “One of the issues with it is that the students coming in and deciding if they want to be in an LLC are making that decision when they’re filling out housing applications, when they might be 17 years old,” Bernardy said. “If you talk to 19-year-old students, there would probably be a ton more interest from those who’ve been out in the real world for a little while. But the interest from incoming students just isn’t there.”

The Blugold Commitment funding of the WITS Tutoring project to Enhance Student Success and Retention for Computer Science Students has been cancelled as well. Bernardy said the committee found that the impact of the project was not high enough to continue receiving funding.

Other than these five programs, Bernardy said that the amount of funding for the other multi-year Blugold Commitment projects stayed the same, with the exception of one program.

The LTS Improving the Campus Infrastructure to Support New and Emerging Technologies program was the only multi-year proposal increased. Bernardy said the need for the increase was because of the benefits package for employees.