Summer Research College gets the axe (sort of)

The Daily reported yesterday that Summer Research College will not exist this summer.

SRC previously housed about 200 students in Manzanita, hired staff and ran academic and social programming, but with a shrinking budget, funding has been redirected.

“We’re putting as much money as we can into the direct student grants, rather than spend money on that residential component,” said Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education John Bravman.

The 200 number makes this cut sound rather dramatic, but most of these students will still be living in Stanford summer dorms receiving Stanford funds to do Stanford research. 200 research spots are not disappearing (though a few might). It appears the main cuts are to the administrative costs assoiciated with SRC’s residential program, including its specific residential staff and academic/social programming. The good news is that student grants remain a VPUE priority:

While Bravman would not disclose the cost of the SRC residential program, which employed five to seven RAs and two RCCs, he said that the cuts would preserve research grants for “something like 15 more students.” SRC Director Brian Thomas wrote in an email to The Daily that those grants usually amount to $5,200 for full-time researchers.

As someone who did not participate in SRC, I can’t say for sure, but it seems like maybe directing the programming funds into more grants may have been a good idea regardless of the budget cuts. For those who did SRC, what do you think? Was the SRC programming useful? Was living with other SRCrs better somehow?