Staff editorial
Pepperdine students will be asked by the Student Government Association to vote on a resolution to increase student fees Wednesday. If the resolution is passed by a majority, students will pay an additional $15 each semester increasing SGA’s budget by $45,000.
Student fees should not be raised from $45 a semester to $60 because SGA is not spending all the money it currently controls and the body is supposed to be policy based, which should require minimal funding.
The rationale behind raising the fees is that they haven’t been raised in recent years and that Pepperdine has much lower fees than other benchmark universities, according to SGA Advisor Michael Houston. SGA President Leon Dixson said at the Feb. 8 meeting that SGA would serve as an “umbrella-type organization,” and the increased fees would go to SGA, SPB, ICC and SAO. Half of SGA’s budget, or about $20,000 a semester goes to the ICC to support clubs on campus. The ICC has monthly meetings in which club representatives can request money from the general fund to have events. The majority of the clubs are not spending their money on bringing speakers to campus or having events that would benefit the general student body.
SGA began the semester with an $8,000 surplus from the fall semester. The surplus came from some of the classes not spending all their money.
When the Student Programming Board was separated from SGA last year, the focus of SGA shifted to create policies that will help students and SPB became in charge of planning student activities. There is no inherent power behind an SGA resolution. They are written by students or SGA members and then voted on and passed onto the administration. A resolution is a call to action and SGA should serve the purpose of telling the administration what is important to the students.
Dixson said if SGA had more money there could be a bigger presence on campus, and the organization could better represent the students. However, SGA is not adequately representing the student body when a quorum is not met at SGA’s regular Wednesday meetings. The resolution to increase student fees was scheduled for Feb. 8 but could not happen because not enough senators were in attendance. Thus the scheduled vote had to be postponed on whether to increase student fees.
SGA’s focus is not supposed to be on giving out prizes at Homecoming, making T-shirts or going on retreats. These students are elected to advocate for their constituents.
SGA has been responsible for some beneficial things for student, such as the stairs to Towers, putting clocks in all the classrooms, extending the libraries hours and having the convince store added to the HAWC.
The problem comes from SGA spending money on things that don’t benefit students. In the 2004/2005 school year, SGA spent more than $1,000 for sweatshirts for about 35 SGA members, $8,000 for retreats and $3,000 for a banquet. There’s no problem with SGA members renting a house for a weekend and playing bonding games, this however should not cost more than $3,000 and be paid by student fees.
Adding an additional $45,000 a year to SGA will make it grow, not make it more effective or representative of students.
Another amendment that SGA is proposing is to give senators a stipend. The idea is that it will attract more people to serve. Money should not be the motive for serving on SGA. The members of the E-board all receive stipends of $900 for their work which is another $3,600 of student money that is not directly benefiting students. Before students should vote to make their peers pay the additional $15 a semester, SGA should represent the students by attending meetings.
02-16-2006