Written by: Andy Zhong

After a year of much reform and progress, Tyler Williams, president of Association of Bentley Activities (ABA), is pleased with how the organization has worked to improve the student experience at Bentley. Because Williams is graduating next fall, he was unable to run for reelection, since the ABA constitution clearly states that the presidential position requires service of one full year.

This past academic year, ABA worked on some major projects, such as the Club Sport Moratorium, in addition to creating changes to its constitution in an attempt to improve the efficiency and communication of Cluster Representatives to student organizations.

“I think overall, ABA was very functional this year,” said Williams, who assumed the role of presidency early last semester when his predecessor, Jacob Graham, left a vacancy in the highly influential student organization.

Perhaps the most notable policy created by ABA this year was the introduction of the Active Organization Policy. The Active Organization Policy “will be used to identify struggling organizations and give [ABA] an opportunity to help them out,” explained Williams. With over 100 student organizations on campus, it becomes difficult for ABA to address each and every organization’s needs. The Active Organization Policy looks to tackle this issue.

Although Williams is pleased with ABA’s progress, there is still much room for improvement. Williams stated, “The one thing I think we still need to work on is external awareness. We still need students and student organizations to understand who we are and what we do.”

The club-recognition process is a lengthy one and requires a lot of dedication. “We look at each organization holistically and try to look at the student organization community as a whole,” said Williams. “As each of our Cluster Representatives represents the organization community as a whole, we try to pull viewpoints from every angle in order to make a decision. It’s never easy to deny an organization, but we give everyone an opportunity to appeal and still become recognized,” he continued.

Throughout this past year, many Bentley students have stepped up in terms of creating their own clubs on campus. Some of the organizations approved this year included Bentley African Association, Bentley Student Artists, and, according to Williams, “close to 20 other potential organizations currently moving through the recognition process.”
When asked whether Williams believes that ABA has achieved many of its goals it set out to do at the beginning of the year, Williams responded, “I would say we did.”

He went on to say, “We revised the constitution and went through some necessary internal restructuring to make us more efficient in our decision making and productivity. I think it shows in the amount we accomplished this semester and moving forward you will see more ABA publicity and awareness. Overall, I am very happy with this semester and this year as a whole,” concluded Williams.

With all these new changes, Williams expects communication and knowledge between the organizations and ABA to improve over the next year.

“I just really want to thank the Cluster Representatives for all the hard work they’ve put in this semester,” he said. “It has been a pleasure working with them and I hope they enjoyed their time on the board.”

Written by: Andy Zhong

The Association of Bentley Activities (ABA) kicked off this semester by appointing its Vice President of Organizational Recognition, Tyler Williams, as its President. The highly-influential position was left vacant late last semester when Williams’ predecessor Jacob Graham stepped down due to personal reasons.

“One of the big goals for this semester,” said Williams, “is revamping the entire communication process. One of my charges as president has been redefining our internal communications to make that more efficient, which in turn reflects the efficiency of our outward communications.”

While Williams admits that there has been a “big lack of inefficiency in the past,” he urges organizations to be patient in the transition process. Williams goes on to remind students that “the best thing I can really say is that the organizations really just need to get back to us with the information that we request and that it is going for a good cause and it does have a purpose.”

The presidency of ABA is a position that is voted upon by the student body at the end of every academic year. Because the position was vacant at the start of this semester, Williams was selected in accordance with ABA constitutional guidelines, which allowed him to become president without holding an election in the wider Bentley community.

Last January was the beginning of Tyler Williams’ first semester on the ABA executive board as the Campus Arts and Media representative. “I really just wanted to get in and see how it worked, why different policies were made, and why organizational governance on campus operated that it did,” said Williams.

Last semester as the Vice-President of Organizational Recognition, Williams was in charge of helping new organizations on campus. “I was responsible for facilitating the process for students who had new ideas and wanted to start an organization on campus,” said Williams.

As president, Tyler Williams will supervise twelve cluster representatives and five members of the executive board, who all together oversee the 102 Bentley clubs and organizations.

“The ABA is first and foremost a resource,” said Williams. “We are here to really enhance and enrich the extra-curricular experience on campus and we try to provide for every organization and to make sure that every organization is heard.”

Written by: Faustine Liao

At the first Bentley Golf Association meeting of the year, President Jason Drucker had a tough message: “I know you guys are real excited about golf, but this year we’re kind of going to have to play things by ear because AIA cut our funding.”

According to the Bentley student organization website, the purpose of the Allocation and Internal Audit Committee (AIA), is “to allocate the undergraduate student activity fee to recognized student organizations of Bentley University [and to oversee] how monies are spent to ensure your activity fee is utilized to your benefit.” Because the AIA board is comprised of students elected by the Bentley student body, the fund allocations decided by those particular students are typically in conjunction with the students’ best interests.

Although the majority of the clubs spend their funds on these expenses, the amount of funding each student organization receives varies on a year-to-year basis. The preceding year essentially functions as a report card AIA evaluates to determine the specific organization’s funding for the upcoming year.

AIA Chair Elise Hanaoka and Vice President of the Association of Bentley Activities (ABA) Tyler Williams, state that the differences in funding for each organization are generally established based on the appeal of the organization to the student body: “We first look at whether the request fits the mission statement of the organization, then how [their] events can benefit the greatest number of students at Bentley. Obviously, larger organizations like CAB (Campus Activities Board) benefit the greatest number of students on campus, therefore they are given larger budgets.”

Although some organizations are capable of acquiring their funds from financial sources other than AIA, the majority of student clubs depend on AIA funding; with these increases in budget for CAB and such organizations, the smaller clubs lose financial support from AIA.

Hanaoka and Williams claim that aside from the increasing needs of the more sizeable organizations on campus, clubs can also lose funding if “they are delinquent with their budget requests to AIA or are inactive in communication with ABA representatives.” For example, “ABA has initiated a website titled CollegiateLink, and [if] groups fail to update their CollegiateLink space, ABA and AIA [can deem them as] delinquent.” In addition, “if a group fraudulently uses their funds for any reason, their accounts could be frozen or fully revoked.”

On the other end of the spectrum, organizations can also obtain more funding at any time during the year as long as they undertake an appeal process with AIA. Hanaoka states that “organizations put expected turnout amounts on their budget requests, and [AIA] tends to run cost-per-person calculations to determine if a request is reasonable… [However], organizations would not be given more money simply because there is a surplus [of funds].”

Filing an appeal does not guarantee additional funds. This year especially, AIA has been “forced to take a step back and look at the big picture…because it has become extremely important for [them] as the allocating organization to be a little more frugal” due to the current economic conditions, according to Hanaoka.

She asserts that AIA modified its priorities last year, which included “reducing the allocation amount for organizations to have promotional items at the activities fair from $300 to $200, [placing] a moratorium on funding conferences given the high per-person cost, [discontinuing] funding of dinners off-campus for organizations, and [reducing] the overall per-person cost of food at events.”

Essentially, the changes in funding this year can be attributed to the combination of the emergence of new organizations and our current economic situation. As a result of these financial adjustments, clubs and organizations will discover how to function without additional funds.

For the Bentley Golf Association, Drucker reveals details about the drastic budget cuts: “Last semester in the spring, we got $1,400 [and] $1,100 went to our outings. This semester I had asked for $1650, and they only gave us $825, [essentially] half of what we asked for, [and now] we have to start charging kids to play golf.”