By Staff Ed

As pointed out in last week’s issue of The Mac Weekly, this month’s celebration of Black History Month (BHM) represents the fourth consecutive year in which all of the BHM events, speakers, and discussions have been completely student planned and activated. However, when examining complete campus participation in BHM related events to previous years, 2011 has been significantly low, and while we at The Mac Weekly applaud the work that student planners have done to increasingly spark interest in student activism and participation, we’ve begun to question the limited institutional and administrative financial support for Black History Month.
So far this month, student’s participation for BHM events has been significantly high, as seen by the large number of student attendance at events such as the viewing of Chris Rock’s documentary “Good Hair” and Professor Ekwueme Michael Thelwell’s Keynote address on the representation of the Black Diaspora. In addition to student participation with BHM, student support for it has also been voiced, as evident by last week’s issue of The Mac Weekly’s that published an editorial expressing the need for open discussions on blackness at Macalester. Why, then, with all of this obvious student interest, is there a lack of financial support from the Macalester administration?Last year, students were allowed close to $30,000 to bring in speakers and organize panels and events in February. However, this year the committee was given $2,500 from MCSG and was only able to accumulate $10,000. This decline in funds led to limited advertising as well as a limited selection of speakers. If Macalester really wants to be the multicultural institution it strives to be, the administration should get behind the BHMs fantastic work.