6 Financial Considerations
The COVID-19 pandemic caused us to modify the use of our budget dedicated to honoraria, outside speakers, and how we honored student participation. Rather than bringing in outside speakers or hosting in-person gatherings, we uplifted and rewarded the expertise of our own CUNY faculty by opening a call for fully-virtual event proposals that would provide faculty a means to connect across disciplines, programs, and campuses to share strategies, resources, and support most relevant to their local students’ needs in this time of crisis. We also rewarded students who helped to facilitate these events with modest scholarships and letters of recognition for their service to CUNY learning communities.
Originally, we had planned on giving students taking courses with TLH faculty fellows Metro Cards to cover their transportation to and from TLH events, relevant exhibits, and the like. In reaction to the pandemic and the general shift toward online or hybrid instruction, in its second and third years of the grant period, TLH gave its Mellon Student Scholars modest financial aid scholarships instead of Metro Cards. This was the most accessible option so students could use the funds for books and other expenses related to their education. In addition, TLH events were almost exclusively virtual to provide faculty an accessible and safe means to connect and share strategies, resources, and support most relevant to their local students’ needs in this time of crisis. We also rewarded students who helped to facilitate these events with modest scholarships and letters of recognition for their service to CUNY learning communities.
We had fewer Mellon Student Scholars than anticipated in the original grant proposal, and thus we spent less on students than we originally budgeted for. Our team devised several ways to spend the extra funds in the third year of the grant period, including forming a Student Advisory Board to guide TLH’s efforts to make institutional change; and organizing a full-day virtual student summit called, “Student Summit on the Role of the Humanities in a Just Society.” The 24 Student Advisory Board members we selected received new laptops and $300 scholarships; the 50 students selected for the summit received tablets and $300 scholarships as well.
Year 1
Year 2
Year 3
Personnel: Salaries and Wages
In the budget report above, you will see three categories for salaries and wages. Our “Program” budget included salaries for our staff leadership team, including summer salary and course releases for our two Faculty Co-Directors. Our “Administration” budget included hiring staff (a College Assistant) to support our Administrative Director, and “Other” went to the wages for a devoted College Assistant who managed our program assessment.
OTPS: Other Than Personnel Spending
Costs associated with the leadership team’s travel to conferences to present the work of TLH on national and international platforms was divided into “travel” and “non-travel” related expenses. Also included in “Conferences and Meetings” are honoraria for speakers and other event hosting costs such as American Sign Language (ASL) interpretation and live transcription services. Equipment and Supplies, such as new laptops, webcams, and headsets with microphones, were given to the faculty fellows to support their use of TLH methods in their courses. Likewise, the work of our staff and the Student Advisory Board benefitted from using new computer equipment. Under “Consultants and Professional Services,” we spent funds to hire independent contractors to assist with some of our web design needs and annual reporting projects, and using our “Promotion, Marketing, and Advertising” budget, we printed our Annual Reports to distribute them to internal and external stakeholders. See above for more information about our spending on CUNY students.