Editor’s Note: This article has been updated to clarify that The Whit is an institutionalized organization, which means its budget can be rolled over each year.
On Saturday, April 20, the Student Government Association released its budget for the fiscal year 2025, which announced budgets for the upcoming school year. The Whit has faced one of the biggest decreases in the clubs, honor societies, and organizations that are funded through SGA.
At a drastic 35% decrease, The Whit has been offered $20K for the upcoming school year, a $11K decrease from the 2024 fiscal year, where The Whit was allocated $31K. Printing a weekly newspaper costs approximately $21,499.66 yearly, and offering the newspaper online costs $1,819.48. Since The Whit is an institutional organization, money can be rolled over into the next school year. Clubs and organizations which are not institutional cannot use funds left over from prior years.
The Image Yearbook, another publication on campus faced a decrease as well, going from $46K to $44K but at a less alarming rate of only 4.35%. Another media organization, Rowan Television Network (RTN) received a 2.9% increase going from $34K to $35K. Avant Literary Magazine also received an increase of 2.7%, going from $6,500 to $6,675.
Other organizations, however, received increases that were drastically higher than their 2024 budget.
Catholic Campus Ministries received a 900% increase in their budget, going from $800 to $8000. The Philosophy Club received a 671.8% increase, going from a budget of $610 to $4.7K.
The Whit covers sports, concerts, people, and events on campus year-round, in addition to game coverage of minor league sports teams like The Delaware Blue Coats and Wilmington Blue Rocks. It is the only independent news organization at Rowan University. The Whit also provides student editors with stipends and runs an internship program for college credit.
In addition to this, The Whit covers crimes on campus and gives voice to those impacted, and covers clubs and DEI issues around campus, to give adequate coverage to clubs and students that aren’t as widely heard from. In addition, The Whit serves a major role in letting students and faculty know about the actions of SGA, the administration, and the Board of Trustees, to ensure transparency in the practices of the most powerful groups on campus.
Due to the scale of this budget cut, it would stifle The Whit’s current operation as a weekly source of information, news, and independent journalism for the university. This budget cut could potentially force the publication to go almost completely digital, ending the weekly papers that have run at the university for 85 years, since 1938.
Not only would this impact The Whit as a brand, it would also impact student journalists’s ability to learn how to write and design a page for print, an important skill for anyone in the business. It would also impact the news source’s ability to get discovered, making it harder for faculty and prospective students to come across the publication, and would continue to contribute to the overly curated digital environment from which most young people currently get their news.
Editor-in-Chief Victoria McGivern, has expressed her concern for this budget decrease.
“I am appalled. This is my last week before I graduate. I’ve had to reschedule my entire week because of SGA’s decision to slash our budget by 35%. Although I am unbelievably stressed, I will always stand with the people,” McGivern said.
While clubs did get the opportunity to present budget proposals with operation costs and other such expenses, the actual process for deciding the budgets beyond that is not open to the club leaders. This means that actual line-by-line decisions on cuts do not get the feedback of those affected by said cuts.
The Whit reached out to SGA for comment, but they declined.
The budget hearing will take place tonight at 7:00 p.m. in the Student Center Ballroom.
For comments/questions about this story DM us on Instagram @thewhitatrowan or email thewhit.newseditor@gmail.com
Womp Womp
After attending SGA yesterday and hearing about this for 2 hours I kinda agree with SGA. sorry. also bashing other media orgs is crazy.
acting like you are better than the other orgs both in this article and at senate shows where your priorities lie. plus the outright false reporting and lies that you gave to the senate last night about your numbers can not be good for your future career prospects as journalists…
Blaming other clubs, instead of blaming whoever reported that you guys use 1/2 of your newspapers for cat litter, is bananas. Do better preparations for budget hearings with accurate information next time instead of backpedaling at senate.
Also, if deciding the budget was up to club leaders, nothing would get done because no one feels they deserve to get their budget cut. You guys also are NOT in the same classification as philosophy club and other organizations mentioned, so reporting on their budgets frankly do not apply here.
Do better, report more true and accurate stories next time.
Ridiculous that you’re complaining about your budget when you’re one of the most funded orgs
Didn’t let any other organizations talk during the hearing. Def all for democracy
maybe more people would feel bad for you if you didn’t act like your org was more important than everyone else’s. throwing a temper tantrum is a great way to gain support and prove how journalistically savvy you are!
Maybe donate less to cat liter
Maybe consider donating less to cat liter
Yeah I would feel for ya but it’s not very nice of y’all to go start throwing other clubs under