By Torea Frey

The Daily Northwestern

If administrators fund recommendations presented by the Undergraduate Budget Priorities Committee on Monday, students could expect more classes aimed at non-majors, renovations to Blomquist Recreation Center and expanded resources for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender issues.

UBPC’s proposal asks university leaders to allocate funding to five undergraduate projects. The university’s budget will be announced in early April.

The report also featured six secondary recommendations to “give the administration an idea of what we’re looking at,” said UBPC Chairman Jay Goyal. This was necessary, he said, to account for budget cuts the university will make.

“(Administrators) mentioned we should be cost conscious,” said Goyal, a McCormick senior. “As a result, we did scale things back and could not include some of the more expensive options.”

Goyal said the two-tiered approach to budget recommendations was an innovation for the committee. UBPC also sought input from the student body with an online poll ranking possible recommendations.

The most popular selections in the poll were not necessarily UBPC’s top priorities. But committee member Tamara Kagel, Associated Student Government academic vice president, said the committee considered issues depending on the proportion of students affected.

“There’s certainly a lot of precedent for that on this committee,” said Kagel, a Communication junior. “That’s why the committee does research.”

UBPC recommended that the university expand classes in smaller schools to allow students interested in the topics to take courses outside their majors.

Respondents to the poll emphasized the importance of having a broad choice of classes.

“Classes for non-majors, especially in art and radio-TV-film, would be great,” one post wrote. “I want to take art so badly, but there is never space for me. I’ve been 45th on a waiting list too many times.”

The UBPC report also advocates improvements to Blomquist, the creation of an LGBT resource center, the revival of 24-hour computer laboratories during the last three weeks of each quarter and an increase in lighting on campus.

Although an LGBT resource center ranked 12th of 15 choices in the student poll, UBPC members said it merited consideration because there is a huge discrepancy between resources for gay students at NU and comparable schools.

Rainbow Alliance President Alex Goldman said the committe’s recommendation was a step in the right direction for NU.

“Up until now, it’s just been the Rainbow Alliance office, staffed by students, that acts as a resource center,” said Goldman, a Weinberg junior. “Having an office, even if it were open for only 10 or 15 hours a week, would be substantially better than what we could provide as students.”

Lighting garnered the most student backing but was not the committee’s first priority because it topped last year’s recommendations, Goyal said.

In its secondary recommendations, UBPC endorsed renovations to HereAndNow, an emphasis on handicapped accessibility, an environmental studies program, a film projector in Ryan Family Auditorium, better NU recycling centers and heated shelters at shuttle stops.

Some members of Wheels of Change said they were disappointed but not surprised that building accessibility was not a primary priority.

“We really need to get the help of the able-bodied community to show both the administrators and other students that this is a key issue,” said Dan Ellman, a Medill sophomore.

Goyal said UBPC had to weigh the impact each decision would have on the overall student population, and students using wheelchairs are a minority on campus.

“We had more good proposals than we can propose,” he said.

Ellman said any refusal to push for renovations was part of the problem.

“The reason we’re such a minority group is because of the lack of accessibility on campus,” Ellman said.

Goyal said he expects the online poll to improve the recommendation process in the future.

“In the past, the committee has been criticized for pushing their own pet projects,” Goyal said. “We want to make (the recommendation process) broader, including the whole campus.”

Sam Pickerill, said he would prefer more input to UBPC before the original 15 choices are selected.

“Students should have a poll at first. There’s some things I’d like to see that just aren’t on there,” said Pickerill, a McCormick freshman .