Trips are common opportunities that allow Ottawa University students to expand their education with hands-on experience.
Kara Cunningham, assistant professor of communication studies and business, said trips are important for her classes.
“For a class to work all semester and then go study what they have done, or go see it, or in the case of my class go present what they have done is a great opportunity,” she said.
Cunningham took her Advertising Strategies class to Washington, D.C., to present an advertising plan for the USS Sequoia Presidential Yacht’s 85th anniversary celebration.
The class received funding from Student Senate that covered airfare, hotel and meals.
Cunningham’s travel expenses were paid through the communication studies department budget.
Cunningham said without the funding the class would not have been able to take the trip to Washington, D.C.
She said a lack of funding in the department’s account would have made it impossible without fundraising or students paying their own way.
“I find it hard to ask a class that is already paying for tuition to have to pay for a trip,” she said. “I understand extracurricular activities and sports paying to be a bit more reasonable but asking a class to pay these expenses would be odd.”
Senior Laura Reed was one of the students who attended the trip to Washington, D.C.
“I think it’s a great idea for all students to travel somewhere while in college with a group of other students,” Reed said. “I think that trip helped me appreciate little things more and in my mind I can now picture myself going to see places that we see in our books.”
Student Senate Sponsor Richard Menninger said despite Student Senate’s history of financial support of classes to take trips that support their in-class education, Student Senate is considering changing the policies regarding financial support.
“They have been discussing who will be able to apply for funding for trips this year,” he said.
Changing which groups are eligible to apply for student senate travel aid may lead to fewer classes being able to take trips.
“It would be disappointing to not give students the opportunity to travel,” Reed said. “Trips are just a good incentive. I understand money is tight but they shouldn’t cut money off completely but work for a compromise to where the class can fundraise only part of it.”
Reed said she worries without funding from Student Senate she would not have been able to pay her own way to travel with the Advertising Strategies class.
“We pay quite a bit to go to Ottawa,” she said. “Going to school and having a job and to put that extra pressure to fund for a trip could hurt education. Students need that support for the opportunity to travel and go to different places in and out of the country.”