White not pleased with budget cuts

The Southern Board of Supervisors approved a systemwide budget cut proposal Saturday with savings totaling $10.6 million with a 12 – 2 vote, which directly resulted in the termination of 16 system office administrators and employees.
Student Government Association President Stanley White said Monday the budget cuts were “terrible” and take away from one of the state’s most useful tools.
“Higher education — colleges and universities along with technical colleges —breed the leaders of the new society,” said White, a senior theatre arts major from New Orleans. “Cutting their higher education is going to result in people going to work force training, which, I’m not saying is bad, but you will not get the same outcome as attending a university.
In cutting higher education, there are less teachers, therefore less students are able to attend (universities); it’s not adding up.”
Last Spring, Southern students, along with White and SGA Vice-President Langston Williams, protested the budget cuts by rallying on the State Capitol and listening in on committee meetings.
“I don’t think it is good,” said Brittany Rawlings, a sophomore mass communications major from DeRidder, La., when speaking of the budget cuts; “because students aren’t able to take the number of classes they are use to.”
Another obstacle this SGA administration must face early on, is dealing with in-consistencies in Senate per-sonnel, what White calls a “condensed work environment in the current SGA cabinet.” White and colleagues have dual positions to combat these inconsistencies, which seem to be keeping those involved on the same page for now.
Despite the budget cuts implemented by the Board and the different emotions behind the strategy, White believes that the unity he expressed in his “1 Accord” campaign can still be reached “if the student body, faculty, staff, alumni and the community work together toward the same goal,” he said.
“From a student standpoint, we need to become more efficient with our [fund] spending,” said White. Since the budget cuts are due to the recession, students should become wiser and gain more knowledge on what’s really going on. As far as students in our university, we need to start fundraisers, scholarships, or competitions, anything we can do to generate monetary units in order to better our institution… we all need to get on one accord to get that done. We all have to open our minds, because if its closed we can’t receive or give anything.”