This year, the School of Architecture Student Council has lost its $12,000 budget for planning and executing the annual Beaux Arts Ball charity event as a result of University-wide cuts to discretionary funding.
The Architecture Student Council is a Special Status Organization responsible for serving Architecture students through social, community building and service events, including the Beaux Arts Ball.
The Beaux Arts Ball is an annual charity event that has been run since 1928 and is hosted by the Architecture School and the University art department. Alan Watts, Architecture Student Council president and fourth-year Architecture student, said the event was hosted at the Graduate hotel last year and the majority of the $12,000 grant went towards renting the space and providing catered food. Following the event, the organization donates any extra funding and ticket money raised to a charity of their choice.
“The goal is to be able to pay for the event using as much of the grant as possible so that we can make money off the event [through ticketing and other fundraising],” Watts said. “The more money we make off of the event, the more we can donate to charity.”
Watts emphasized that he is confident the event will still be able to take place this year but that their Student Council will need to fundraise more and potentially change the location of the ball. He said that rather than hosting at a rented space, it may be more budget-friendly to hold the ball on the North Terrace of the Architecture Grounds.
"It's a little bit [tougher] this year when we don't have that grant,” Watts said. “It means we have to be more creative about where we're getting our funding from, and then also [rethink] what exactly the event might look like.”
Watts said he was made aware of the budget cut through a meeting he had with the School of Architecture Office of Student Affairs. According to Watts, administrators in the office said this was due to federal funding cuts.
In an email sent to Watts prior to this meeting, Cindy Kiefer, associate dean of Student Affairs in the School of Architecture, said that all departmental discretionary funds had been cut.
“Our budget has been impacted across multiple areas, including professional development, equipment replacement, Final Reviews, and the elimination of all departmental discretionary funds,” Kiefer said.
The Cavalier Daily reached out to Kiefer for more information on this topic, who referred The Cavalier Daily to Associate Dean of Finance Megan Arevalo — who was unresponsive — and Executive Director of Communications Sneha Patel, who declined to speak with The Cavalier Daily directly.
University Spokesperson Bethanie Glover said that the need to cut the ball’s budget this year stems from University-wide guidance of “fiscal austerity” and cuts to all areas of discretionary funding. Glover said that these cuts are not a result of recent federal funding cuts, which totaled more than $60 million in May.
According to Glover, the Architecture Office of Student Affairs has engaged the University’s Foundation and Advancement team for support in searching for potential donors to support the event this year.
Watts and Cole Evans, Architecture Student Council director of fundraising and third-year Architecture student, both said the Architecture Student Council has already begun discussing ways to combat the budget cut. They are still in the planning stages as Watts did not learn of the cut until the second week of the school year. He said one thing the Council is considering is increasing their cosponsorships with the Honor Committee.
The Committee works to uphold the community of trust at the University through holding students accountable to integrity and honesty, and their cosponsorships allow the Committee to partner with other organizations on Grounds to host initiatives and events. Cosponsored events with the Committee each have a maximum budget of $500.
Evans said the Architecture Student Council has typically cosponsored with Honor between one and three times per semester, in which the Committee has provided them with a grant to buy materials for Architecture students. Watts noted materials like acrylic, cardboard and model making tools can be incredibly expensive for students and that partnering with the Committee in the past has been a huge help.
“We do a lot of cosponsorships with the Committee … they have a ton of money and they’re willing to share with us which is amazing,” Watts said.
Beyond the Committee, Evans said the Architecture Student Council is additionally hoping to cosponsor with the University Student Council, which serves all students, as well as the University Programs Council, which is a programming organization that provides entertaining and educational events to students.
“We’re trying to explain the situation to [other committees] to tailor our events so that they can fit either some of the criteria for cosponsorships or [to] create another type of grant or fundraising category that they might be able to assist us with,” Evans said.
Evans said two other sources he is looking into requesting funding from are the University Parents Program and the Jefferson Trust. The Parents Program works to directly aid student organizations through monetary donations from current and past parents of University students, and the Jefferson Trust provides grants to ideas that they think will enrich the University. Evans explained that the Architecture Student Council will work to write compelling requests for grants that will hopefully qualify the Council to receive funding.
Despite the loss of the $12,000 grant for the Beaux Arts Ball, Watts said he remains positive about the year ahead for Architecture students. He emphasized his commitment to upholding the general programming the Architecture Student Council does throughout the year with their $2,500 budget. This budget has not been cut as it is a collection of Architecture students’ Student Activities Fees that each student pays with tuition, and costs $70 for Architecture students during the 2025-26 academic year.
He said with this money, there will be a fall semi-formal, teaching workshops where Architecture students can better their Adobe skills and professor-student bonding events for students to showcase and professionalize their work.
“We do have a ton of programming that is still going to happen and still be great quality,” Watts said.
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