Allison Fields is a pre-med student in the Dedman College. In her organic chemistry lab, the class must split in two because there is not enough equipment for the 30 students to work in the same lab.

“It’s annoying because the lack of equipment forces the professors to waste their time and our time explaining the lab instructions twice,” Fields said.

Coincidentally, SMU officials hope to raise hundreds of millions of dollars in the next few years, more than enough money to address the concerns of Fields and other students.

SMU plans to kick off a fundraising campaign in fall 2008 that some estimate will raise up to $1 billion. This will be the largest campaign in the university’s history, but SMU has made little or no effort to ask students how they think the money should be spent.

The Daily Campus surveyed 75 students to find out how they thought SMU should spend the money. Their top three concerns are additional financial aid support, improvements in the classroom and an increase in professors’ salaries.

Fields says SMU officials should provide an opportunity for students to voice their opinions about how the money should be spent.

“We are the ones who go to class every day and have to deal with these problems. SMU should definitely conduct a student poll,” Fields said.

Patricia LaSalle, head of the SMU public affairs office, explained who was in charge of creating the goals of the campaign and how those goals will be reached through the fundraiser.

“The strategic plan of the campaign really came from the schools and the deans meeting with the faculty, and up through the provost and the president,” LaSalle said.

The strategic plan lists five goals to be reached with the use of the campaign money, but no specific student input has been taken into consideration.

The closest the plan has come to a student’s hand is at the SMU Board of Trustees. Even then, only one student representative could vote to approve or reject the campaign. There was no opportunity to suggest revisions to the plan itself.

“The Board of Trustees didn’t determine the strategic plan, but they approved it,” LaSalle said.

If SMU meets its $1 billion goal, how will the money be spent?

At this point, it is unclear. However, tentative plans for the Meadows School of the Arts suggest the university’s priorities are very different from those of the students.

Meadows expects to receive between $70 and $100 million from the fundraising campaign. This figure will include the $33 million that the Meadows Foundation gave to the school in 2006. From that grant, $25 million went directly to the Meadows Museum, leaving only $8 million to the Meadows School of the Arts.

The Daily Campus attempted to interview Dean José Bowen of the Meadows School of the Arts to obtain a better understanding of the strategic plan and how this campaign money would be spent in his school.

After two weeks of scheduling conflicts, Bowen replied in an e-mail, “I can tell you that there isn’t anything specific I can say about Meadows yet.”

If the past can be a guide to the future, a five-year campaign ending in 2002 raised almost $542 million. The vast majority of the money was used for the “general university,” including 14 new and renovated buildings, while the second largest portion, 15 percent, was spent on athletics.

SMU students have different priorities. In the survey conducted by The Daily Campus, more than one-third said additional scholarship money should be SMU’s first priority. Elizabeth Parker is one of these students.

Parker is a junior violin performance major in the Meadows School of the Arts. Everyone in her survey music class was required to give five dollars at the beginning of the semester to pay for handouts and assignment sheets for the class.

“I literally wrote SMU a $5 check. We are already paying almost $40,000 per year for tuition. Why isn’t that $5 for copies already included in my tuition?” Parker said.

Parker comes from a middle-class family, which makes her ineligible for most financial aid. Each annual increase in tuition puts more stress on the shoulders of SMU students and their families such as Parker’s.

“It’s unbelievable to me that they justify raising tuition. I can’t pay for it out of my own pocket, especially with them raising it every year,” Parker said.

The students surveyed said increasing professors’ salaries is also an important issue that should be addressed.

According to a 2006 Faculty Senate study, SMU was ranked No. 10 out of 12 benchmark schools for the average salary of a full professor and last in the average salary paid to an assistant professor. Fields is concerned that SMU might lose some very distinguished faculty if their salaries are not high enough.

“If some other institution is paying more, then of course the professors are going to move there instead,” Fields said.

Parker is also concerned about how her tuition money is being spent.

“Where is all the money going if not to the professors?” Parker said. She believes that financially supporting her instructors is crucial for a high-quality education.

Classroom renovations are another concern for SMU students.

John Howard is a junior engineering major. The 10 students in his Digital Logic II class must work in a room the size of a professor’s office.

“We are so cramped in there. If I need to ask the T.A. a question on the computer, I have to pass my laptop to the end of the table to the T.A. because they have no room to walk behind us,” Howard said.

Students also expressed interest in spending the campaign money on a building dedicated entirely to study halls and out-of-classroom courses. With the upcoming demolition of the Binkley Apartments, students also thought SMU should spend money on new campus apartments.

SMU will publicly announce the campaign next fall and reveal how much money has already been raised and disclose its plans for spending.

“If SMU really wants to make our university better, they should get the opinion of the students. I mean, we are the majority on campus,” Howard said.