Parsons students will soon receive help purchasing costly art supplies thanks to the Parsons Student Senate’s new art fund.
The PSS art fund will begin granting students a maximum of $100 per semester for their class projects. The expensive cost of art supplies has always been a problem amongst students and will finally have the start to the solution within the next couple of weeks.
“During my first week as a student here, I spent $800 on supplies,” said Courtney Vang, a fashion design senior.
Many of the materials that students need for their class projects are costly, and often need to be bought several times within a semester. An assortment of specific pens and pencils, to sketchbooks, cutting boards, and fabric are only a few of the required materials that students must keep up with.
Students like Camille Elliot, who has already spent nearly $300, have already learned that your grade can be affected by supplies.
“I had a piece due for one of my classes where I was told to use watercolour,” Elliott said. “I don’t have a job yet and my mom wouldn’t send me more money for supplies, so my piece ended up lacking dimension. I definitely feel like my grade is going to suffer for that.”
Rocco Morabito, a photo junior at Parsons, also expressed his concern for those in his program. First semester students are required to print in a dark room ,meaning you can spend up to $100 a week on that alone, explained Morabito.
“It stresses a lot of people out,” Morabito said.
This is where the Parsons senate fund comes in. Kulveen Sarna and Maggie Cavaliere are the senators behind the initiative. Both juniors studying strategic design and management, the duo are currently serving their second year as Parsons senators.
“We’ve seen people struggle, especially those who are already on financial aid and don’t have the proper funds,” said Sarna.
“We are in the final process of getting our funding formatting done,” said Sarna. “It’s basically now a waiting game with the administration, so we’re hoping within the next few weeks everything will officially be moving forward,” added Cavaliere.
85% of students said they found it difficult to pay for their art supplies, in a survey conducted from 68 students by the Parsons senate team in Fall 2014.
Of those, 32% say they pay up to 1k a semester, while 37% pay up to $600.
When Sarna has been tackling the issue of funding for art supplies ever since she joined two years ago. The Parsons Gala was initially created to not only encourage a stronger sense of community amongst Parsons students, but to raise money that would benefit them as well.
The second annual Parsons Gala took place last spring and with ticket prices set at $10 for students and $15 for guests.
All ticket sales went directly into the Parsons student senate’s art fund. With $3,200 put aside for this new initiative, Sarna and Cavaliere wasted no time taking action.
Students will need to fill out an application form to receive money. General information about the student, the course number, the cost, and the breakdown of the materials are examples of some of the questions. If the student meets these requirements, a five minute interview with a senator will follow.
In the beginning stages, students will be allowed to apply for this money once a semester for up to $100 in supplies. As the funding hopefully continues to grow over the years, so will the money given to students.
In the case that there are more applications than funding, an administrator will have access to student financial service records in order to prioritize the money to those who need it the most.
“Our personal goal is that we want to have someone funded by the end of November. That would be wonderful,” said Sarna.
Parsons program director of fashion design, Fiona Dieffenbacher,said that there are current solutions for students who are struggling financially. “Typically faculty let us know if they have a student who is struggling to make ends meet in their class,” said Dieffenbacher.
But the Parsons student senators felt compelled to do more.
“It’s a slow process, because it’s a long process with a lot of different gears to grind, but it’s happening,” said Sarna. “We want to let people know that we’re here, this exists, and we want to help,” Sarna said .
Sydney is a current Junior studying Journalism & Design at Eugene Lang and the Co-Editor-In-Chief of The New School Free Press. She spends a questionable amount of time responding to emails, remembering coffee orders for her various internships, producing films & frolicking around the Lower East Side where she’s living her New York dream of occupying a bedroom with a brick wall.
