Do different departments have disparities in funding? U. students discuss

Rutgers students share their opinions about the University's academic departments' differences in funding and how they can be resolved.

Alycia Santiago, a School of Arts and Sciences senior, said the Department of Journalism and Media Studies is underfunded and there is more the University could do to advance the curriculum.

For her major, she said that there is no studio for students who want to develop media production skills, and she has had to seek internships and external resources to receive training for her career.

Santiago said that while she understands that STEM departments may require more funding from the University to maintain discipline-specific tools, she still wishes there was more investment in departments like the Department of Communications.

"When it's just so bare minimum for the humanities majors and then so above and beyond for STEM, I wish that there was a little less of a gap, but I do understand why there is a gap," she said.

Daniel Ramotowski, a Rutgers Business School senior, said he believes that departments that focus on fields like medicine or engineering should have greater investment than departments that focus on arts or humanities.

"I think that all the more medical departments and pretty much the more application-based departments, like engineering, I think they should have more funding as opposed to more literary-based departments," he said.

He said he does not know any specific differences in funding between departments but thinks the University administration is likely to prioritize certain departments, like those he mentioned, for funding over others.

With respect to his own school, Ramotowski said he thinks the Rutger Business School is well-funded in proportion to its standard of achievement.

Yashi Srivastava, a School of Arts and Sciences sophomore, said she sees Rutgers Business School has substantial funding compared to the School of Environmental and Biological Sciences based on the difference in maintenance for their academic buildings.

"I think, in general, the buildings on (the Cook and Douglass campuses) don’t have that much funding," she said. "I can tell (they don’t) because I was in the Biological Sciences Building last year, and it was just not the best maintained."

To decrease these differences, the University should consult with professors about their experiences working in academic buildings and provide students opportunities to share their opinions, Srivastava said.

"I do know that students get frustrated with the buildings, but they feel helpless and that their voice will not be heard, or they don't know how to reach out to the correct departments and the resources that can actually help with that," she said.

Shrinidhi Kesavan, a School of Engineering first-year student, said she does not know the processes behind departmental funding, but she notices that the School of Engineering building looks relatively outdated compared to the Rutgers Business School building.

To relieve some funding disparities, she said departments can seek out sponsorships and the University can reorganize its budget, she said.

"I'm not completely sure, but maybe ... if we spend less on this and then we spend more on department funding. We could create a more even experience within all the departments and improve the experience for everyone," Kesavan said.

Santiago also said reassessing departmental funding and offering financial aid to majors who qualify would improve the university's multidisciplinary education.

"The only way the school is going to grow is if all majors are growing with it," she said. "You want to be able to improve across the board, you don’t want to be able to improve in just one area."