Grants questioned
Student leaders deny receiving offer
November 21, 2006
Angela Wiebe
Discrepancies regarding resident grants offered to select groups of students this year have been brought to light recently, leaving some Trinity Western University students questioning the school’s granting process.
According to Housing and Conference Services Director, Brad Wallbank, a special resident grant category was created this year for student leaders, which includes people involved in groups such as the TWU Student Association, Mars’ Hill, and the Pillar yearbook.
“We worked together to extend financial aid to student leaders so they would be encouraged to live on campus,” Wallbank said. “It’s for those who had a desire to live on campus, but just couldn’t afford it.”
Wallbank noted that the initiative was a combined effort between his department and Student Life, who both felt that student leaders are “culture carriers” for the on-campus community.
“The commitment that student leaders bring to the campus is very positive,” he said. “They’re a positive voice in the residents’ community.”
Close to 100 emails were sent out to student leaders listed with Student Life, Wallbank said, offering assistance for those in financial need, ranging from $750 to $2 250. The grants only applied to dorm-style rooms in Douglas, Fraser, and Northwest.
Wallbank said only 12 student leaders, of whom he could not name, accepted the one-time grant. Another three or four grants were extended to students under the age of 21 who appealed their living on-campus requirement due to financial constraints.
A number of prominent student leaders, however, have denied receiving an email offering financial assistance.
For example, Video Yearbook Editor Iain Cook, third year Resident Assistant Tara Olfert, and TWUSA president Norman Van Eeden Petersman all noted they don’t recall receiving the offer.
Petersman, who is spending his fourth year on campus, added that he even sought out some sort of resident grant in order to cut down on his student loans this year, but said he failed to find any assistance that applied to him.
Wallbank, however, said that any student leader “could apply for [the grant] based on needs that students had.”
Wallbank had not responded to these perceived irregularities before Mars’ Hill publication deadlines.
At the same time, different resident grants were also offered to first-year or transfer American students, such as Lynden, Washington resident Bennet Vis.
A third year Mathematics and Physics student, Vis transferred from a United States college to TWU because it was cheaper and closer to home.
Vis noted he heard “through the grapevine” about the first-year American grant by chance through a TWU friend. After demonstrating financial need, Vis was offered a year’s worth of free housing for a room in Douglas.
“They were basically lacking in American enrolment and they were lacking in male enrolment so they offered a free housing incentive,” he said, adding that he has been told he would not receive the same perks for his second year at TWU.
Vis said he feels that the offer, extended to Americans only, was fair.
“I’m still paying tuition,” he said. “I’m just taking a room that would have been sitting empty.”
Enrolment management coordinator Corwin Koch said, however, that these types of incentives are not a new offer. In fact, TWU’s admissions department has been offering different incentives, such as free laptops, to select groups of students as a marketing strategy for a number of years now.
“We’ve been doing it for years… with some type of hook,” Koch said. “[The incentives] all have the same sort of value.”
Koch said the incentives are usually offered by way of postcard to a targeted group of American students. TWU buys into an organization that collects names of students who request admissions information from several colleges while taking their SAT’s. Koch added that there are no “name-buying” organizations in Canada.
While Canadians are not necessarily offered the same incentives, Koch said the marketing strategy is a very standard practice.
“It’s coincidental that it’s [for] Americans,” he said, adding that different Canadian groups receive different offers. For example, a year’s worth of free tuition is offered through an essay contest at Mission’s Fest each year.
“Fair has nothing to do with it,” Koch said. “This is something that all organizations do.”
Several TWU students said they understood the reasoning behind incentives, but wondered why all students couldn’t be offered the same deal.
“It’s a good hook, but I don’t know why they don’t do it for everybody,” said Chris Banke, first year.
“I think it should be offered to everyone,” said second year Kenzie Watson, “but then…[Americans] have to go through more to get here.”
The number of American students who accepted the free housing incentive this year was unknown by the admission office.
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