The Fund is an initiative that Marx hopes will kindle inventive curricular developments at the College.
"We are looking for proposals from faculty for interdisciplinary curricular initiatives - new classes, visitors and field expenses to further energize the exploration and discussion on campus of how we can address pressing social or natural problems or themes that cannot be fully understood and certainly cannot be solved within the departments," Marx said. "My impression was the faculty welcomed the opportunity to explore new curricular areas that don't fit neatly into the disciplinary boxes we have constructed. And we hope that the students will be enthusiastic about the exploration," he added.
Among student club leaders, however, there is concern that structuring the usage of the president's discretionary funds in this way will leave many student-planned events underfunded.
Marx announced the creation of the fund at a faculty meeting in December. Faculty have until March 1 to submit proposals for funding. Requests may not exceed $50,000 and all proposals will be reviewed by the Committee of Six. While funding requests can be made for up to three consecutive years, they are contingent on a continuing evaluation process.
"I'm spending my money in a systematic way that I hope will be beneficial to the future curricular development of the college," said Marx.
Supporters of the fund believe that student interests are at the core of this venture. "The more curricular innovation that occurs at the college, the more students have the opportunity to study areas that would not have been available to them and to explore directions that they may not have considered before their arrival," said Dean of Students Ben Lieber.
But what remains unclear is exactly how this will influence the many students who request funding from the president's office each year. Student groups that need funding generally submit proposals to the Student Activities Fund, the Association of Amherst Students and department chairs, in addition to the offices of the various deans and the president, all of whom have discretionary funding available to students for research and other academic purposes. In some cases, the Lecture Fund and the Five-College Fund are other available financial resources.
Professor of English Susan Sanchez-Eppler, who is chair of the department, believes that students will find ways to fund their events. "I am not myself aware that there has been so drastic a cut in administrative support for student projects," she said. "Students often request and draw on English department funds when college-wide sources fall short of meeting their needs. I expect that trend to continue." For years, students have depended on the departments for research and community objectives. "The English department will continue to balance its own programming needs against requests from the wider community," added Sanchez-Eppler.
Lieber expects more requests to his own office as a result of the new initiative. "Many, many students already come to this office for funding. I would expect that number to increase." He does not foresee huge funding problems for students. "It should not have a major effect. The amount of funding students receive from [the dean's offices] is relatively small per event."
While Sanchez-Eppler acknowledges that new programs are essential, she believes students should get as much funding for their own events as possible. "It is clear that Amherst recognizes the need for fiscal restraint, though my sense is that we are in far better economic shape and hence have more available for student projects than most other institutions," she said.
Eric Osborne '04 disagrees. "In my Amherst years, this is the least amount of funding I've ever known to be available this early in the semester. I'm expecting huge problems."
Jessica Melendez '04, co-chair of the Chicana/o Caucus is worried that the upcoming spring breakdance show her club is organizing will be in jeopardy due to lack of funds. The president's office has in the past been a source of funds for the Chicana/o Caucus.
"This is the fourth year that Amherst has hosted a ... show and this is an extremely popular event that people of all races and ages can attend," she said. "We were hoping that the president's office would continue their contributions to events ... that would celebrate Amherst's diversity," she added.
However, Marx noted that any perceived shortfalls in funding from his office this year are not due to the Initiative, which has not yet gone into effect. Although his discretionary funds for the year have been exhausted, he said he has been told it is frequently the case that these funds are gone by this point in the year.
The AAS has, in the past, filled budgetary gaps for some events when funding was not available from other sources. However, this semester the AAS is also short on discretionary funds. "As a [budgetary committee] member, I can say that without money coming from the president's office, we're going to have a hard time with funding large events," said BC member Rosalyn Foster '05.
Melendez also reflected on the long-term implications of the Initiative. "I worry that all student programming will suffer from this decision. Our other possible sources just aren't as generous with funds and if the President's office turns down student requests for funding, competition for other sources of funding will become more fierce," she said.
"What will the future be for traditional events? I think our student groups may take lack of funding as lack of support and interest from the administration."
Marx also said that funds that were donated for certain events, such as speaker series, will remain restricted to those events.