This story was last updated at 11:29 p.m. March 13.
Student organizations will no longer receive financial support from the Office of Student Engagement or the Student Governance Council for travel outside of Tompkins County beginning in August 2026.
In an email from OSE Director Mish Lenhart and Associate Director Dan Rogers sent March 6, officers and advisers of student organizations were notified of the change.
The anticipated reduction to the SGC Appropriations Committee’s budget is $55,000, according to the email. The Appropriations Committee is the primary way student organizations on campus receive funding. The budget cuts are part of the college’s plan to reduce the budget deficit and balance the budget by Fiscal Year 2028.
Spending trends for the last three years have shown that SGC allocates over $55,000 annually to student organization travel, according to the email. The email said that more than a quarter of the appropriations budget was going to less than 5% of the student body.
“This new plan will allow both SGC funding and OSE programming support to benefit most students at Ithaca College in the future,” Lenhart and Rogers said in the email. “This is clearly a challenging situation. This decision was made to continue to fund the robust programming that student organizations offer and will allow the Appropriations budget to last longer and fund more of the events that student groups hold on campus.”
IC’s chapter of Women in Communications travels to the annual New York Women in Communications conference, held in New York City, each fall. Junior Kate Gleeson-Feldman, president of WIC, said via email to The Ithacan, that with the new budget cuts, this trip will not be possible.
“Being able to go outside of Tompkins County provides more professional opportunities for students interested in networking with alumni,” Gleeson-Feldman said. “Broadening this scope of work and opportunities allows our members to see what they could be doing after graduation.”
Gleeson-Feldman said the organization has relied solely on support from OSE and SGC to fund its annual trip for the past six years. Now, she said the organization will have to start fundraising on their own or seek financial support from the Roy H. Park School of Communication.
“We may have to go to a closer city or conference but wouldn’t be able to go back to NYC without OSE funding,” Gleeson-Feldman said. “This was a trip our whole organization looked forward to, and we will now not be able to attend.”
Senior Nick Polisi, president of the IC New York Film & Television Student Alliance, said the alliance’s annual trips to New York City were funded almost entirely with support from OSE and SGC.
“It’s kind of almost pointless to be a [part] of the OSE,” Polisi said, “That’s all we ever requested for, was funding to go on trips,” Polisi said.
Polisi said the New York City trips were a valuable time for students to meet with alumni connections.
“Those New York City trips were so helpful to our students because they got an insider knowledge of what it’s like to be in the industry,” Polisi said. “I know a couple people who’ve gotten jobs because of going on the trips. … So that’s just taken a big part away from our club.”
Polisi said the group hopes to find financial support through the Special Opportunities for Students Fund or alumni connections, but is not sure NYFTSA will still be able to offer the same trip experiences to students in the future.
Premium Blend, IC’s “all fem aligned” a capella group, goes on multiple trips each academic year. Senior Aoife Hartigan, president of Premium Blend, said the group goes on two tours outside Tompkins County annually.
“We get to go to our members’ hometowns,” Hartigan said. “We get to perform in their old schools, in nursing homes, in libraries … we get to know more about them and where they grew up. It really helps us share our music beyond just the Ithaca area.”
Hartigan said the group also travels to compete at the International Championship of Collegiate A Capella. She said in the past, the group has relied heavily on SGC travel funds to pay for hotel stays and gas. In the wake of the decision to end SGC travel funding, Hartigan said the group will not be able to travel as much and will have to expand their fundraising efforts.
“We were definitely quite a bit shocked when we got the news, because this is such a staple part of our group,” Hartigan said. “I think we all realized immediately that that would have to change pretty drastically in the future.”
In a post on its Instagram, SGC announced that the funding policy changes will be discussed in more detail during its meeting from 7-9 p.m. March 9 in the Taughannock Falls room on the second floor of the Campus Center. SGC invites members of the community to attend the meeting to learn more about the impacts of the budget cuts, and hear from leaders in the Division of Student Affairs and Campus Life and OSE.
The email said a decreased capacity for OSE staff has also influenced the decision to not provide support to student organizations traveling outside of the county. In an email to The Ithacan, Lenhart said OSE’s full-time administrative assistant was moved in Fall 2025 to support another department, leaving remaining staff to fill gaps in the administrative work formerly fulfilled by that role.
“Staff reductions in OSE require us to rethink the type of support that we can provide, and the amount of administrative time and effort required to support travel is no longer feasible,” Lenhart and Rogers said in the email.
Assistant news editor Sydney Martin contributed reporting.
