By Kinga Fraczkiewicz
“On behalf of KDESI, you are invited to join us for the Shaadi (mock wedding) of Maira & Veda,” reads the brown and yellow invitation. The Shaadi, held March 3rd 2025 is a celebration of South Asian culture, intending to educate the community about their culture and to bring the community together in a night of celebration.
At 5:30 p.m., members of KDESI filter into the empty Arcus Center for Social Justice and Leadership. Maira and others heave the boxes overflowing with decorations into the building. Some members stick the gold twinkling lights high up on the wall, untangling them as they went along. Fairy lights decorate the window panels and red garlands hang in arches on the floor-to-ceiling windows creating an elegant, understated backdrop for the night’s festivities.
At 8 p.m., Arcus opens its doors. The IDs of students are scanned, as traditional South Asian music plays in the background, the flutes, guitars, drums, and sitars adding ambiance to the chatter of the crowd.
Olivia Schleede ‘27 walks from the chilly air into the warm atmosphere of Arcus with a group of friends. They stand momentarily, taking in the scene and start with the food neatly displayed on the kitchen island. Paper cups, recyclable plates, and plastic cutlery are arranged on the side.
The Shaadi is just one of the many events organized and operated by student organizations at Kalamazoo College. With over 70 active clubs, the activities and events planned by each club range from weekly meetings to performances. How are these activities funded by Kalamazoo College? KDESI, a South Asian identity and culture-based club, uses the Zoo After Dark (ZAD) and Arcus budget for the Shaadi event, Hillel at K is funded by an external organization, and The Index has a private, separate budget solely for printing newspapers.
Treasurer for KDESI, Maira Ghaffar sits in the middle of her grey couch, as she explains that the Shaadi event is funded by the ZAD budget. “The Zoo After Darks have a $2,000 budget flat, but you have to have food at these events, so we spent $1,700 on food and we had $300 leftover for things to do at the event,” says Ghaffar. The leftover budget bought a Salwar Kameez (traditional dress) and a small set of South Asian bridal jewelry for Ghaffar, who is participating in the Shaadi as the groom.
Associate Director of Student Involvement, Sally Read, works directly with student organizations to plan out how their budgets will be spent. “At the start of the year I’m told how much the StuOrgs. (student organizations) have to work with, and then from there I work with StuOrgs. and the funding board to figure out how we allocate that most equitably and fairly,” says Read. The funding board is comprised of students that volunteer to serve on it and aid Read in creating guidelines for budget spending to ensure the budget is spent fairly. “Budgets are developed by staff in Student Activities and OSI (Office of Student Involvement), who look at the historical events and match those with current and anticipated programming needs and student priorities,” says Brian Dietz, associate dean of students. Kalamazoo College puts significant effort into allocating funding to all of the student organizations and ensuring that it is justly spent on student activities.
There are two main budget categories: funding for central programs such as the ZAD and K-fest, and a portion dedicated to student organizations. The funding for central programs is coordinated by Student Activities and OSI and the weekly ZAD events. The central programs provided at K have a separate set budget of $2,000-$2,500 per event depending on its scale.
Back at the Shaadi, Schleede smells the aroma of steaming butter chicken, crunchy samosas, mouth-watering spices of daal lentil curry, and the sweetness of Gulab jamun, a dessert. She carefully places a portion of each food on her plate as she moves down the line. “It smells amazing,” says Schleede. A chai (tea) station is nearby. Schleede takes the paper cup and fills it from the tea dispenser. She scoops fine white sugar and adds it haphazardly to her cup. “I think I put too much sugar in it,” says Schleede, tasting her all too sweet tea. A plate in one hand and a cup in the other, she struggles to lower herself into the conversation pit as her long brown skirt constricts wider movement. Schleede and her friends sit together, eating their food, smiling, and admiring the community’s outfits and costumes.
At the beginning of each trimester, student organizations must submit a trimester plan that states the activities they want to hold and a budget proposal outlining the cost of each activity, approximate attendance, and materials to Sally Read. “I look through the budgets and look for red flags,” says Read. Red flags are budget proposals that request more money than necessary. In these instances, Read contacts the student organizations, asking them to reduce or rethink aspects of their budget proposals.
Ghaffar shows me the KDESI budget plans from last year. The Excel spreadsheet, titled “TERM OVERVIEW,” is divided into four green columns marked “Week, Materials, Food, Attendance Goal and Price.” Events for the term are all planned ahead of time, allowing the budget to be created based on the activity and expected attendance. For example, planned for Week 6 of 2024 was a tea bar, a collaboration between KDESI and Asian Pacific Islander Student Association (APISA). The materials needed were Chai tea, biscuits, and milk, the attendance goal was 30, and their budget proposal was $150. Ghaffar sends their budget proposal spreadsheet to Sally Read through email. Activities like these bring the community together; students chat about their days over chai, taking momentary breaks from their responsibilities.
Schleede and her friends sit in the pit when the Co-President of KDESI dressed in a vibrant red outfit with a detailed golden design and adorned with gold jewelry, makes an announcement: “Everybody come to the front so that we can make way for the bride.” Guests get up from where they are perched, chucking paper plates and plastic forks into bins, walking to the seats set out in front of two chairs decorated with white and red cloth.
Anticipation is thick in the air as the wedding party slowly arranges themselves, chatting and laughing among each other. The bride, carried on two men’s shoulders, is holding onto their shoulders and upper arms for balance. The groom is carried in the same way, also by members of their wedding party. Next, the parents of the bride and groom bring out the rings. The groom, Maira, dressed in a dark red Kameez, vibrant orange skirt and a pale orange dupatta, gets down on one knee, holding out the gold ring. The crowd is in awe.
A bowl of watered-down milk is brought out and set in-between the bride and groom. The Co-President drops the rings. Maira and the bride, Veda, thrust their hands into the milk, fingers desperately feeling for the other’s ring. Schleede gasps as the milk almost spills. The crowd erupts in cheers when Maira surfaces Veda’s ring. Schleede and her friends clap, taking in the chaos of the event.
To hold the Shaadi at the Arcus, KDESI filed a building request form. They met with Kawther Mohammad to discuss the intended use of the space. At the end, KDESI was asked if they wanted to request a budget from them. Unaware that the budget was available to them, the Co-President of KDESI submitted a budget proposal of $400 for goodie bags. The blue goodie bags with “Thank You” written in gold, heavy with a candle, lotion, face mask, and a keychain or bangles are thank-yous to the wedding party and select guests who helped plan and organize the event that brings their community together.
The Arcus center was created from a $23 million grant from the Arcus Foundation as a gift from community member Jon Stryker. Student organizations like KDESI can submit budget proposals to Arcus if they relate to social justice. “These can include hunger, climate change, political issues, and more,” says Quinton Broach, the social media program coordinator of Arcus. The budget allocation is decided as a staff with Executive Director Emily Williams.
Back at the Shaadi, four men walk up to Maira and Veda and lift them between their shoulders holding onto them, while the groom and bride armed themselves with red garlands. They toss the garlands at each other, aiming to get it around their necks – the first one wins. Schleede and her friends watch, wide eyes trying to decipher the chaotic movement before them. If not involved in the club, it was difficult to understand what was happening. Guests cheer and clap; the wedding party shout insults and quips at each other, egging the bride or groom to win. Finally, Maira throws the garland around Veda’s neck. Arcus rumbles with cheers from everyone.
Similar to KDESI, who sometimes holds religious events, Hillel at K is a Jewish student-led religious organization focused on fostering community, outreach, and celebrating Jewish holidays. Their weekly meetings vary from coffee talks to Shabats held in the Hicks Center.
Four board members sit spread out on the couches of The Cavern, laptops on their laps and two big ice creams from Dairy Queen on the corner of the grey plastic table. The President of Hillel at K, Allie Chafetz ‘25, is going over details of their Sha-birthday event on Saturday; an event to celebrate the cumulative birthdays of the club’s members. They discuss the design of the cake:
“We can add photos or images of star signs, but we have to go there in person,” says Charlie Wester, the vice president of education at Hillel at K.
“A cake with images will be $80,” he adds.
“Or we could just do ‘Happy Birthday,’” said Cyrus Sanchez, the vice president of social programming.
“Yea, that’s way overbudget, we can write the names on the cake,” decides Allie Chafetz.
Hillel at K receives most of their budget from their overseeing organization, Hillel Campus Alliance of Michigan (HCAM), but the OSA budget subsidies some activities. HCAM, a collection of campus Hillels throughout Michigan centered on building dynamic Jewish communities for students, is largely funded by the Applebaum Foundation and has approximately $10,000 available to Hillel at K for the school year. When holding events catered by Parkhurst, Hillel at K will use the OSA budget. Thus, like every other student organization, they submit a budget proposal for their planned activities at the beginning of the trimester. The “Shab-birthday” event to celebrate the birthdays of its community was funded by HCAM.
Co-Editor-in-Chief of The Index Harper Schrader sits on the grey chair in the tiny Index office located on the second floor of the Hicks Center at 10:40 p.m. The room’s only illumination comes from the overhead lights shining through the office window looking out into the second floor. Schrader brings out a yellow legal pad and a pen poised at the ready.
First, she scribbles down abbreviated titles, and word counts of each article. There are 12 articles between 500–2400 words that need formatting. “This is campus news, this is opinion,” she mumbles to herself, surfing up and down the page scribbling down the headings of each article while the ventilation fan hums in the background, adding white noise to a very tedious process. “It’s the little things you don’t think about,” says Schrader. “You don’t want to have two articles by the same person on the same page.”
The Index, similar to other student organizations, uses the OSA budget for hoodies, pens, and other supplies, but for printing it has a separate budget to “guarantee that the Index will have money [for printing], because they’re essentially the free press on campus,” says Read. Normally the Index will print 500 copies of a four-paged issue, approximately $570, or 500 copies of an eight-paged issue, which is approximately $730 including shipping. The shipment is from Canada, and due to the tariffs placed upon Canada by the Trump Administration, the cost of printing the Index will increase by 25% from this issue onwards.
Back in the office, Schrader sits in front of the computer. “I gotta restart,” she groans, tearing the four pages out of the yellow-legal pad. She splits the pages into twos and threes, rewriting the articles in new places. The upbeat jazz playing on the radio juxtaposes Schrader’s frustration. Awards of the past, standing bold on the cabinets, set a high standard the Index is desperate to achieve.
With college-wide budget cuts limiting the resources of every department, the budgets available to student organizations are projected to be affected next year. The budgets for the 2024-2025 school year were decided in December to January of last year, when the number of students admitted for the following academic year was unknown. The fact that “the enrollment for this year was so significantly low is why they are projecting such a deficit of the college budget,” Read says. “We’re working with a budget that didn’t realize how little income we’d have.” “Some tough choices have to be made, and this is done in coordination with students and student priorities,” assures Dietz. Kalamazoo College is working hard to ensure that the student activities budgets are not significantly reduced as these events are pillars for many members of the community.
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