MEREDITH RODRIGUEZ
Assistant News Editor
Students studying abroad in the future will not know the financial freedoms experienced in years past.
In the past, students’ SGA fees were sent overseas in the form of a “refund,” in which elected SGA representatives used the money for an overseas event or for the ever-popular overseas sweatshirt.
Those days are over.
“Some directors were rather shocked,” International Programs Director Tim Horton said. “It’s tradition. It’s a fund of money we’ve known we’ll have access to. That money came to be expected.”
Now not a penny of a student’s yearly $42 SGA fee and only a fraction of a student’s $48 Student Programming Board fee will be sent overseas in the form of the traditional refund for overseas programming. The money will instead remain in the control of Malibu campus SGA officials to be used for long-term, on-campus changes and salaries.
Horton said that, while he and his colleagues were initially confused, he now understands the reasoning behind this financial adjustment.
SGA has been going through a paradigm shift that started two years ago under president Jason Palmer, followed by president Carl Kasalek. Palmer and Kasalek worked to separate SGA completely from programming, thereby freeing SGA to represent student-body needs and leaving programming solely in the hands and budget of SPB.
Now that programming is completely removed from SGA, past rationale that overseas students should not have to pay SGA fees to Malibu because they would not benefit from SGA-hosted programs on campus, no longer applies.
“When programming was taken out of SGA, we began to allocate money toward resolution projects,” SGA President Leon Dixson wrote in an e-mail interview.
Resolution projects often take years to follow-up on and similarly require the funding from multiple years.
“SGA is no longer operating on a year-to-year basis,” Dixson said. “Our mission is to use the funds given to us by the students to bring about changes they can witness during their four years here.”
It does not make sense, by SGA’s estimation, then to make an exception to its new purpose and no-programming policies so that students studying abroad can have their sweatshirts.
“SGA has to keep it consistent,” SGA Adviser Michael Houston said. “Why give students special treatment when you’re overseas?”
The SGA budget will not be completely cut-off from overseas students, Houston added.
Out of the $90 that students pay per year to SGA and SPB, $48 is allocated to SPB and $42 is allocated to SGA.
SPB will send $15 overseas per person out of the $48 each student pays to SPB, according to SPB Adviser Justin Schneider.
SGA money may be accessed by overseas students through the same means every Pepperdine student must now access SGA money – through resolutions.
Three-thousand SGA dollars are available to students, clubs, organizations and overseas students. They can use resolutions to request money for policy changes, philanthropy events or general events.
New Rockwell Towers stairs, extended library hours and Sandbar renovations are examples of long-term campus improvements resulting from past resolutions.
Anybody can write a resolution, explained Houston, and everybody is encouraged to, including overseas students. Dixson said SGA has already provided the Florence Villa with instructions on how to write a resolution and is eager to teach others. If a resolution is sent in before 5 p.m. every Friday, the resolution will be discussed the following Wednesday, Houston said.
An overseas student’s resolution will go through the same scrutiny, research and lengthy process required of all SGA resolutions. Some pass, and some do not.
“It will pass if their research and budget plan is sound,” Houston said.
It often takes a few years for a passed resolution to be followed up on, Houston added. While Horton hopes students will pass resolutions to eventually benefit overseas programs, by buying laptops or cell-phones for the Moore Haus in Heidelberg for example, Houston said most overseas students’ money would most likely be applied to the Malibu campus.
“Three out of a student’s four years will be on campus,” Houston said. “Eighty percent of the time, (overseas students) will get use of (their money) here. When they get back, there’ll be changes here, which overseas students will benefit from.”
From SGA’s perspective, this new method is fair because it falls in line with SGA’s new path.
“SGA has a new vision and agenda, which is advocacy for students and representation for students,” Houston said. “(International Programs) may not be happy with it, but I think they understand.”
Horton agreed that he and his colleagues understand SGA’s new decision.
“If that’s the way students are accessing funds in Malibu, it seems fair that they should have to do that overseas,” he said.
09-08-2005