Members of the Wesleyan Student Assembly (WSA) discussed the logistics of raising the student activities fee for next year and the future of the New York Times readership program during Sunday night’s meeting.
The student body will vote on a proposal to raise the student activities fee later in the year. A two-thirds majority in favor of the fee increase is necessary among students who vote in order for it to be enacted.
“This discussion is not about whether or not we should raise it, but by how much,” said WSA President Zach Kolodin ’07 at the beginning of the discussion.
The student activity fee has been at $107 per student per semester for the last several years, giving the Student Budgetary Committee (SBC) a budget of nearly $600,000 to allocate to student groups. Still, the SBC turns down many financial requests each year
“We have over a half million dollar budget, which is good, and I think if we raise the fee, it may stop us from scraping at the bottom of the barrel,” said Nicole Ippoliti ’09, a member of the SBC.
Most members of the WSA who attended the meeting expressed agreement that the fee should be raised, although they debated whether the fee should be raised gradually each year, significantly every few years, or some combination of the two that also takes inflation into account.
“We’ve actually been losing money because of inflation,” said WSA Vice President Brittany Mitchell ’07, pointing out that the fee was last raised five years ago. “We have to come up with numbers we can justify, but I don’t think we should just look at inflation.”
Mitchell pointed out that students are often quick to scorn the SBC or the WSA when their groups do not get requested funding, rather than suggesting a raise in the student activities fee.
Several ideas for the amount of increase were discussed, and these proposals will be considered, but it appears that increase will be in the range of $17 to $40 for the fall 2007 semester, putting the fee at anywhere from $124 to $147 per semester. A $20 per semester increase would add over $100,000 to the SBC’s budget.
“I am for an increase,” said Nishita Roy ’07. “Compared to peer schools, I don’t think we have the best performers that come here, and I think it’s because of lack of money.”
Roy suggested breaking down the increase numbers, explaining how much per student would go toward each of several specific events, such Spring Fling.
“I’m not sure we’re spending our money 100 percent efficiently here,” said Anda Greeney ’07. “We should have a much more targeted way of doing it.”
The WSA will further discuss details of presenting the student body with a ballot for increasing the fee.
The discussion of a student activities fee increase comes on the heels of a proposed cut in funding for the New York Times Readership Program from the Dean’s office budget. This is the second straight year in which this cut has been proposed.
The Dean’s office budget allots $12,000 per year to the Readership Program, nearly half of its cost, and the remainder of the funding comes from the SBC. Approximately 850 copies of the New York Times are read by the Wesleyan community each day, and the University pays at a rate of 30 cents per copy, but the cost would increase to 40 cents per copy if the number of newspapers delivered to campus each day was cut.
The Dean’s office budget cuts are part of the effort, spearheaded by the Board of Trustees, to reduce the draw from the endowment. Some members of the WSA suggested eliminating other, often unutilized programs, such as “First Year Matters” and “Sophomore Savvy,” in order to free up more money. Apart from the Readership Program, proposed cuts in the Dean’s office budget have not been publicly released.
“The Dean’s office does not want the information on its budget or the proposed cuts to be public,” Kolodin said. “But the fact that there are cuts is something that is public.”
The strong consensus of the WSA members was that the Readership Program should not be cut. However, alternative sources of funding, in case of a $12,000 cut sometime in the future, were discussed. Charging students .15 points per newspaper, getting a member of the Board of Trustees to fund the program, or somehow facilitating the sharing of newspapers were some ideas.
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