Along with other media outlets, the Daily 49er has not given Beach Fund enough attention in the past, which is why I would like to explain exactly how crucial of a program Beach Fund is for the continued success of Cal State Long Beach.
The Beach Fund program is dedicated to support the general needs of the university. Student resources that the Beach Fund program supports include: tutoring services, the career development center, the writer’s resource lab, along with the research conducted on campus, and various scholarship fund programs.
As a supervisor with the Beach Fund program at CSULB, I am able to see how crucial student fundraising is to maintain all of the excellent free resources that students utilize on an every day basis on campus.
Beach Fund student callers contact alumni, parents, and friends of the university, while being recognized as an ambassador of CSULB. Beach Fund callers have excellent communication skills, which allows them to build a strong rapport with the alumni that they speak with on an everyday basis, and encourage alumni to become lifetime donors for the university.
The CSULB Beach Fund program has a goal of reaching $1.1 million each year in order to maintain a high quality of education for all student resources offered on campus. Due to the success of our program, CSULB still remains one of the most affordable universities in the California State University school system. In fact, U.S. News and World report recently ranked CSULB as one in five best universities for affordability, quality, and access to education.
An issue in higher education is how poorly student resources are supported by both student tuition and state funding. For instance, according to the CSULB website, at this campus the budget for student resources consists of being supported by 17 percent of student tuition and 20 percent by the state; however, the other 63 percent is run directly through outside support by the Beach Fund program.
According to the 2009 CSULB budget central on the campus website, “The current recession — the worst in 60 years — has blown open gaps in states’ budgets. States had to close a $102 billion budget shortfall in wrapping up their fiscal year 2009 balance sheets, which ended June 30 in all but four states. Cutting funding to higher education was a strategy used in 31 states to mend these shortfalls. Yet states face another $121 billion in deficits in fiscal year 2010, and already a few state budget directors have predicted $45 billion in awaiting deficits for the following year…So far in this recession, the number of jobs lost is more than twice that of the downturn in 1981 and 1982.”
Despite our fundraising efforts, student tuition continues to rise across California, and employees in higher education are laid off from the lack of available funding. This impacts students because tutors are not available to support them through their most rigorous courses.
The success of all students at CSULB is important. This is because as students earn high grades and succeed on campus it attracts the attention of prestigious national rankings such as the Princeton Review, which CSULB ranked in the top 50 best public universities in 2011.
As one can see, the state has had problems in the past in regards to funding universities. Consequently, it is crucial to distinguish Beach Fund student callers as a very important asset for the university. Beach Fund deserves more media attention so that its cause can be better recognized by potential donors, since they are striving to fill the $1.1 million gap for student resources.
David Urbina is a senior communication studies major who works for Beach Fund.
Very true, I support the Beach Fund, the callers are very friendly over the phone and do it for a great cause but sadly no one knows about them! Give them more credit for all the hard work they do for the university. Go Beach!