Study Packet For

Project 01

MA 103

February 14, 2011

30 points

This assessment consists of:

(1) this booklet, which has 5pages, including this cover page.

(2) a separate sheet with the prompt(s) and space for your written response(s).

Please make sure this booklethas all 5 pages.

You have the rest of the class period to complete this assessment. Feel free take notes and write in this booklet, and you may take it apart in order to help you prepare your responses.

You are welcome to use your textbook, course notes, a calculator, and the calculator with Microsoft Windows. You are NOT permitted to use any other applications, such as email, instant messaging, or web-browsing, or use a portable electronic communication or entertainment device (cellphone, iPod, etc.).

The given scenario is hypothetical, but realistic, and the task contains several documents of varying degrees of relevancefrom different information sources. While your personal experiences and values are important, this task is self-contained, so you should base your response(s) on the information in the provided documents.

The open-ended performance task allows us to assess your critical thinking and quantitative reasoning skills. In addition, your presentation and writing will be considered when your submittal is scored.

Background
Scenario:
You are a student at Juniata College, a small (1500 student), 4-year, private, liberal arts school in central Pennsylvania. You matriculated at Juniata at the beginning of the Fall 2008 semester, with an initial major in Environmental Science. Your family is especially happy with your choice, since several of your relatives work for DCNR (the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources), and they look forward to you doing the same. Your family is also happy with your extra-curricular activities, especially your membership in the Great Outdoorsclub and as Student Government Treasurer.

During the fall of your sophomore year, you noticed several announcements regarding the upcoming Student Government elections. You had a nice experience in student government while in high school, and with encouragement from some friends on your residence hall floor, on a whim, you decided to run for Treasurer. Between a series of eye-catching and humorous campaign posters, your enthusiastic (but not annoyingly so) set of friends and supporters, and dearth of competition (there is just one other candidate for Treasurer, a student named Ron Livengood), you won the election.

Almost as soon as you took office during your sophomore year (2009-10), you encountered several challenges as Treasurer. Rather than being discouraged, you found that you enjoyed solving the problems and you felt that you made a positive difference. Overall, you greatly enjoyed the experience, and now as a junior during the 2010-11 academic year, you look forward to meeting whatever additional challenges arise.
Challenge:
In your position, you work closely with the Director of Student Activities, Bruce Stacy, since the collegehandbook directs the Student Government Treasurer to work in conjunction with the Director of Student Activities to allocate money to each club and organization. In fact, last year Bruce Stacy was so impressed with your original funding proposal for 2010-11 that he implemented it as is.

Unfortunately the economic downturn has affected Juniata, and Ken Rudyard, thePresident of the college, has directed Student Activities to revise the2010-11 funding plan which you designed, within the next two weeks. On top of this, Director Bruce Stacy has received scattered, but vocal,complaints from a few students regarding funding. These complaints seem to focus on the fairness of the budget allocations each club receives, since you are also a member of the Great Outdoors club.

Task:
So, in response, Bruce Stacy has asked you to write a private memoto him addressing these concerns.

In particular, your memo should:
(1) answer the observation that “the original 2010-11 funding allocations are unfair”
(2) revise your initial funding proposal for 2010-11, to meet President Rudyard’s proposal in Document B by making suggestions for funding for each of the seven clubs listed in Document C

From working with Bruce Stacy over the last year and a half, you know that he really values visual aids like graphs and charts, so you consider ways to incorporate these in your letter, if appropriate.

Supporting Documents:
Document A: Email received by Director of Student Activities
Document B: Letter from Pres. Rudyard
Document C: Excerpt from the Student Activities Annual Report
Document D: Article from student newspaper, The Juniatian

Again, while your personal values and experiences are important, you should base your response on the evidence provided in the documents.

NOTE: You should have four(4) documents (labeled Documents A-D) that are the key sources of evidence you have at your disposal. Please check now to ensure you have all fourdocuments.

DOCUMENT A

Stacy, Bruce (STACY)

From:Livengood, Ron (LIVENGRX08)
Sent:Thursday, January 22, 2011 1:45AM
To:Stacy, Bruce (STACY)
Subject:Unfair club money

Stacy:

i am sending this email since you told me to do this when i called you at home tonight i just want you to know that i stopped by your office a bunch of times and you were never around so that’s why i called. your secretary told me that you were doing the club budget for next year, and I want to tell you that i don’t think its fair. why does the outdoors club get more money than the chess club. and why is treasurer of student government in the outdoors club? thats not right. when i told my parents about this they were really mad too. my dad was in the same fraternity in college with prez rudyard.

peace out.

DOCUMENT B

January 14, 2011

From: The Office of the President

To: Members of the Juniata College Community

I am writing this letter to address some concerns with our operating budget for the upcoming year. Despite the rampant speculation on campus, for the most part Juniata’s budget has been and will continue to be, immune to this volatility. Unfortunately, despite all our efforts, there will be a shortfall in the 2010-11 budget, which is forcing us to revise this year’s budget. This task will be undertaken with great care and sensitivity.

We are undertaking several different approaches to address this deficit in the revised 2010-11 budget. The option causing the most discussion involves redirecting some funds that normally would be allocated for Student Activities. Some of you may be aware that a large percentage of the funding for clubs and organizations comes from the activity fees of students. Since we had our largest enrollment ever this fall, this corresponding activity fee revenue was the largest it has ever been. The leadership and budget teams were in agreement that redirecting $1,500 from club funding to the scholarship fund would have minimal impact on student life.

We have great confidence that the Director of Student Activities, Bruce Stacy, and his team will be able to revisit their budget in a fair manner, while keeping our student organizations as vibrant as ever.

We thank you for your continued support, and please feel free to contact me with any questions or concerns.

Dr. Ken Rudyard

DOCUMENT C

Annual Report from the Office of Student Activities (cont.)Dec. 21, 2010

In light of the recent budget challenges, the following table (Table 1.2) summarizes the allocations and memberships for the clubs and organizations on campus for the last twoacademic years. As noted previously, every attempt has been made for the funding to be proportional to the number of members.

(Table 1.2, Allocations. Please direct inquires to Bruce Stacy, ext. 3595)

Graph 1.4 below on the left, displays the relationship between club membership and club funding. It was created using data from Table 1.2.

Graph1.5 below on the right highlights club membership trends over the last two academic years. Overall club participation has increased, although a few clubs have fewer registered membersin 2010-11 than in 2009-10. This overall increase in participation reflects the increase in Juniata’s enrollment.

(Graph 1.4, Club Funding vs. Membership) (Graph 1.5, Club Funding Trends)

DOCUMENT D

December 3, 2010page 2

Great Outdoors Club Meeting disrupted by “Maniacs”

The members of Juniata’s Great Outdoors club were looking forward to an exciting meeting last Monday evening in Neff Auditorium, but they certainly weren’t expecting the type of excitement they ended up encountering. Over 50 members attended, to begin planning for the popular “Outdoor Challenge Day,” held on Spring Weekend each year. Club president, Euell Gibbons described the scene, “As you may know, the Great Outdoors club is one of the largest, and most active clubs on campus. We were looking forward to starting planning for Outdoor Challenge, which raised over $3,000 last year for outdoor safety programs for grade school children. Some of these ‘wing-nuts’ in the chess club tried to block us from getting into Neff for our meeting, and they were harassing some of our new members.” Juniata security was called, and quickly came to diffuse the situation.

Complaints about Funding
The president of Chess Maniacs, Tad Fischer, explained his motivation for the disruption, “Why does the outdoors club get 20 times more funding than we do? Absolutely, we could have a lot more members if we had more money. And my roommate,Ron Livengood,told me the kid he lost to in the treasurer election is in the outdoors club. How is that fair?” Fischer went on to explain that the club was livid when it heard the rumors about losing funding. “We’re already getting nothing, and they decide to cut that? Bruce Stacy promised me some funding last February, and now they are cutting that. I don’t trust anything he or his ‘treasurer buddy’ say.”

Embarrassed by Club Leadership
Historically, the Chess Maniacs have had a small, but enthusiastic membership. Based upon the events last Monday, the club can expect to get smaller, after this incident. Some club members felt duped into supporting the protest. “The leaders of the club decided to call a ‘special meeting’ to talk about funding, as well as prepare for our first tournament. I thought it was kind of weird to meet in the lobby of von Liebig, and when I showed up there were all these posters. I don’t need this kind of stress in my life,” commented Chess Maniac Bharat Patel, (’12, Physics). He added that would be exploring other options, and ironically enough he found the Great Outdoors club “intriguing.” When asked for comment on the incident, Director of Student Activities, Bruce Stacy re-iterated his office’s position that funding for groups is tied solely to the number of active members. “Ironically, the mistakenly guided leadership of Chess Maniacs might have hurt their cause for more funding, since the final membership numbers won’t be tallied for a few more weeks.” The membership and funding totals will be published in the Student Activities Annual Report, in mid-December.

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