By Katherine Gibson (The Cascade) – Email
Print Edition: March 5, 2014
UFV students are no stranger to the financial burden of education.
In the hopes of easing this financial burden, the student union society has created a $10,000 entrance scholarship that will cover the tuition and residency cost of campus life for one incoming UFV student each year.
Currently, UFV does not offer any major entrance scholarships, a fact SUS representative-at-large Thomas Davies notes was one of the main reasons behind the fund’s creation.
“We realize that there’s nothing like this [currently] at UFV and it’s something that we feel very strongly that we should be doing,” Davies says. “[SUS] should be supporting students — that’s our mandate.”
But how does SUS plan to support such a large scholarship within their budget?
Davies explains SUS has progressively been able to decrease its subsidy of AfterMath, freeing up money that would have once gone directly to the student pub.
“Over this past year we’ve become more efficient, so we won’t need as much money to subsidize AfterMath next year,” he says. “Because it’s going to be losing less money, less subsidy is required, which leaves more money available within the SUS budget for other funding areas to support students.”
Davies also notes that SUS expects to see other forms of revenue coming in with the opening of the new SUS building; revenues that could potentially go towards further maintenance of the scholarship.
He declined to elaborate on what, exactly, these forms of revenue would look like.
While allocating $10,000 to one student is the original intention of the board, a motion was recently submitted for the upcoming annual general meeting to split the scholarship into two $5000 scholarships. However, Davies maintains that this suggested alteration is in no way the intention of the board, as it would defeat the intended purpose of the scholarship.
“We have not broken [the scholarship] down and we have no intention of splitting the funds into two $5000 scholarships. Doing so would undermine the fundamental goals and benefits of this,” Davies notes.
“This scholarship is intended as the premier entrance scholarship to UFV,” he says. “That includes the cost of tuition, residence, and other associated things, and … that’s just not possible on $5000.”
This scholarship will use $10,000 of student money, each year, to fund one individual’s education.
Davies encourages students to recognize the benefit of bringing leaders, which the scholarship will be designated for, to UFV’s campus.
“It’s a part of citizenship and being involved, and a part of the community that we’re in. We really have a duty to support UFV students as a whole and that’s what this comes down to,” Davies says. “[The benefit] is not just for the person receiving the award, it’s everyone who is going to be touched by their leadership involvement and how they improve the campus.”
