Student Association President Nicole Capp said Tuesday night at the Marvin Center that she wants the University’s Board of Trustees to examine the student activity fee at their meeting later this month.
Capp, a junior, told the SA Senate she would request the board form an ad-hoc committee to look into the fee that funds more than 400 student organizations on campus.
“The Board of Trustees should be abreast of big issues on campus, and this is definitely one of them,” Capp said.
The student body voted two weeks ago not to recommend an increase in the student fee. Approximately 1,400 people voted in the election that narrowly failed by 4 perecentage points.
The large turnout for a special election shows the importance of the issue, Capp said.
SA Senator and senior Nathan Brill (SoB-U) said the Board should look at the student fee because it affects everyone that is part of the University. Brill introduced legislation for the referendum last spring.
“There’s student life that should be happening on this campus that’s not happening,” Brill said. “We just don’t have the money.”
Brill said there might be other, more creative ways for the Board to bring money to student organizations without a straight fee increase.
“Students said that a fee increase wasn’t the way to do it,” Brill said. “Other avenues need to be pursued .a vote’s a vote.”
SA Sen. Kevin Kozlowski (U-At Large) said the SA did not do much to publicize the election. He said the details might have been ambiguous, including the fact the increase would only affect future students.
“There was too much of an assumption from members of the SA, myself included, that this would go over positively,” Kozlowski said.
Capp said the question was very clear.
“The students deserve more money,” said Capp, who served on the SA Senate finance committee for two years as a senator. She said as SA president she could not promote any certain platform.
Brill said. “To me, it’s just personally painful to see students who wanted things to happen . that don’t happen because we don’t have the money.”
