Around 60 percent of University students say they are unfamiliar with the Strategic Investment Fund, and 60 percent agree the fund is morally questionable, according to a survey conducted by The Cavalier Daily, in partnership with a faculty advisory committee and the Center for Survey Research.
The survey asked questions about students’ knowledge and opinions about the Strategic Investment Fund.
The poll demonstrated 39 percent of respondents believed it was a slush fund, 42 percent do not believe the funds are being appropriated correctly and only 33 percent of students felt at least somewhat familiar with the fund.
The Strategic Investment Fund, created by the Board of Visitors last February, holds $2.2 billion. Former BOV rector Helen Dragas called it a “slush fund” in a Washington Post editorial last July.
Student BOV member Phoebe Willis, a Law and Darden student, said she has communicated about the Strategic Investment Fund in several venues, including forums, emails, the fund website and consultations with Student Council on the proposal of the Strategic Advisory Council.
“Because my position is based on information flow between the BOV and students, I work in conjunction with the administration to communicate new ideas or initiatives specifically to the students,” Willis said in an email statement. “I think that as more projects are funded, students will start to hear more about the SIF in their daily interactions at U.Va.”
Second-year College student Morgan Assel responded in the survey that she was very familiar with the Strategic Investment Fund, citing her own research as the reason for her understanding of the issue.
“Once I found out about it I was pretty angry because our tuition has been increasing over the past few years,” Assel said. “So when I found out the University had this big slush fund, I was very angry and I wanted to find out more about it.”
Fourth-year College student Zachary Diamond said students’ lack of familiarity with the Strategic Investment Fund stems from the University not communicating to the student body well enough.
“I think it's just a failure of the University to communicate their financial activities as a whole,” Diamond said. “I think it's a lack of understanding of how much U.Va. has at its disposal.”
Diamond said the lack of a clear purpose for the fund can be accredited for student concern on the morals behind the fund. He also said reasons for concern include the University’s status as a public school and its requests for donations.
“It's just a large amount of money people didn't know about,” Diamond said. “When you see numbers like that with no purpose, it rings a bell of concern — at least it should.”
Assel also said a point of concern for many students is the AccessUVa program and the implications on it due to the Affordable Excellence program — another financial aid program — and the Strategic Investment Fund.
“They're just making it less affordable and … shutting out people from different backgrounds and lower classes, which just isn't fair for a university to do,” Assel said.
At its September meeting, the BOV decided to put some of the funds towards research proposals. None of the proposals regarding AccessUVa — a financial aid program — were passed during the September meeting.
“I think students may not be fully aware of the details of how the SIF has been used,” Willis said. “I think the first round of funding approvals in September was not highly covered by the media and students may not know how the funds were allocated.”
Willis said something the Board of Visitors may plan to do with money in the fund is to create a permanent endowment and matching aid program with donors for financial aid. The idea, discussed at the November Board of Visitors meeting, has not been finalized.
“The BOV discussed allocating $100 million from the SIF towards creation of this permanent endowment for financial aid, thus taking that pressure off tuition,” Willis said. “No final decision was made at that meeting, but the idea received a lot of favorable feedback.”
Willis said she is always open to student feedback if they think there are better ways to communicate SIF information and updates.
“I have had over a dozen individual meetings with students to answer questions about the SIF, and I’m always happy to be a resource for other students with questions,” Willis said.
To learn more about The Cavalier Daily’s polling methodology, click here.
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