You all need to stop crying about someone else’s opinion. People will disagree with you. Deal with it. Don’t attack him because you don’t agree.

Jeremy, you provided information on the budget. I ask, where is this? According to the “SGA Briefs- 4/14/2010,” the budget breakdown by organization should be on quchronicle.com. Upon searching for it, I was unable to find it. I would love to see what other clubs we give money to in order to compare and provide better feedback on your opinion piece. The information is long overdue since it has been a year from that article, so I ask again where is our transparency on our student organization budget?

As for your complaint, you pay over $36,000, not including room and board, to go here as do the 6,117 other undergraduate students. This means that Quinnipiac has an annual budget of about $220,248,000. You are complaining about the $1,340 and $4,165 for Campus Crusade for Christ and VITA. That is .0025% which equates to a total of $0.89 that you pay to these organizations.

Now you are probably thinking that I didn’t put the cost of the staff members. Okay you got me, but like any other staff member on campus, you and I don’t control who works here or the positions the school offers. Almost every college and university has some kind of campus ministry regardless of religious affiliation including big state schools like Penn State which has 61 religious/spiritual organizations and UCONN which has 22 religious organizations. This is primarily because there is a desire for these programs even if that desire is not yours. I am so sorry that your $0.89 is going to student organizations you don’t want here, but I wonder how much I am paying for you to be able to print your article complaining about such a meager amount?

As for your interest in Sustainability, if you don’t already know there are a number of QU initiatives for this area. We have Roots and Shoots, a new organization (featured on page 5 of this week’s paper), and the Sustainability Committee aka QU Sustainability. I understand that you want a person in charge of these efforts, however it shouldn’t be one person’s responsibility to reduce an entire community’s carbon footprint. I personally, would rather see The Chronicle, and you specifically, Jeremy, since you have a passion for it, do more stories on sustainability. You say you want a place “where throwing a recyclable item into a trash receptacle or supporting coal based power is deemed socially unacceptable.” Well I challenge you to make it unacceptable. As part of the media, it is your job to challenge these social norms and make a change. For example, current rumor is that QU doesn’t recycle; tell us how true this is. If you find it is true, maybe QU will take the issue seriously, or if you find it to be false, students will consider recycling more. I believe this kind of article would be more productive than the opinion piece you have written. Also for “supporting coal based power,” Quinnipiac gets 100% of its energy from renewable resources which means it does not use coal based power. We already live in a place where coal based power is not acceptable. Please if you want to know more about QU Sustainability initiatives, look at what we are already doing on the QU website under Green Initiatives.

Overall, I am disappointed that you are not acting with an open mind for those that want to practice religion. Though you are entitled to your opinion, I would prefer that you provide me with news, not opinion. The Chronicle is, after all, a newspaper. Yet, each week many of the issues like the budget and sustainability, which you brought up, continue to go uncovered.

As at many universities, money goes where there are students who want to organize around an activity, cultural/religious endeavor, or cause. You personally don’t have to be involved, but the university has a pledge to support groups that have large numbers of students involved. Check with your SGA–most universities/colleges with similar government have a way for students to make their own groups, and as long as they have 6 or 8 or 10 members, they can get funding, and they get more funding for more involvement. Obviously, they can’t be a group hurting anyone or doing anything illegal, but beyond that, most groups are fine. I think you are taking your anti-religious opinions and trying to prevent anyone with a religion from receiving aid in order to meet and do work in the community. Personally, I don’t even go to QU. I went to BU in Boston, another non-religious university where diversity, science, etc are fostered. However, we had a Hillel house, a Catholic Center, and a chapel on campus where many religions held their services. In addition, there were pro-choice and pro-life groups. I’m sure if you wanted to create an atheism group and had enough people who wanted to join, QU would support you in that. If you wanted to make a pro-choice group, same thing. The point is, as long as there are enough students who want to participate in the group, QU will sponsor them.

In addition, what’s to say that a religious group isn’t as deserving as a frat/sorority, an a cappella group, or intramural soccer? It seems to me that religious groups do a lot of community service work that benefits the community of your college and surrounding your college. That seems to be a pretty worthy goal to me, regardless of the fact that they also hold mass and pray together. In addition, I’m sure the religious groups wouldn’t exclude you from their activities, even if you aren’t part of your religion. They aren’t EXCLUSIVE as you say–they would probably love for you to join them and learn about their religion or help them with events if you wanted. You just don’t want to, and that’s fine too. But if others do want to partake, they have a right to do so, and if there are enough people interested from QU, they are entitled to funding.

By sponsoring these groups, QU is trying to celebrate its religious diversity and support all students. If other religions wanted to come forward, I’m sure that would be supported as well.