The WSA recently recommended a $28 per student per semester increase to the student activities fee, but it is up to students to decide whether or not it will be implemented.
The main reason cited by WSA members in favor of raising the fee is that it gives more funding for student groups and events. Student requests exceed the $600,000 student activities fee budget by four times. On top of that, inflation and an increasing number of student groups have created a need for more money in the budget. An increase from $107 to $135 per student per semester would add more than $150,000 to the budget.
The student activity fee provides funding for activities such as Spring Fling, the Film Series, club sports, WESU, various concerts, speakers, publications, groups, events, and the New York Times Readership Program.
In order to maintain the status quo on several of these things, more money is necessary. For example, we are in danger of having the popular Readership Program cut because, for the second consecutive year, the Dean’s office, which is facing cuts in order to help minimize the draw from the endowment, has proposed to cut it. Nearly half ($12,000) of the cost of the Readership Program is currently paid for by the Dean’s office budget, while the student activities fee covers the remainder of that cost.
It is troubling that Dean of the College Maria Cruz-Saco is once again supporting cutting the Readership Program, while maintaining other programs, such as the virtually useless “First Year Matters” and “Sophomore Savvy” programs, residence hall programs that RAs have to more or less bribe students to show up at. Cruz-Saco has expressed her belief that reading the Times online would be both sufficient and less expensive, but technology should not triumph over real life. Students do not and should not carry around computers constantly, and often page through the newspaper at meals in Mocon or the Campus Center, or other times when using a computer wouldn’t make sense. Maybe we’re biased because some of us hope to work in this industry some day, but reading a newspaper strictly online just isn’t the same.
Still, a $56 per year increase in the student activities fee is substantial, and students should know exactly where their money is going. Opponents of the raise say that the SBC’s allocation of these funds is inefficient, and that too much money goes to groups that benefit a very small segment of the student population.
It would have been helpful if the WSA could have provided a more in-depth breakdown of student group funding prior to this election. We hope and trust that the SBC’s funding decisions are as fair and judicious as humanly possible. At the same time, we are not envious of the long hours spent listening to budget request and difficult funding decisions the committee must make.
But however you feel on the issue—more money for more groups, or less fees from your pocket—you can vote online today through Saturday at www.wesleyan.edu/wsa/voting. Your vote will count: a two-thirds majority among students who vote is necessary in order for the fee to increase.
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