Josh Barta
jbarta@uwo.edu
Staff senate met this Wednesday to address problems of funding, student tuition, faculty salaries and sexual misconduct training, along with announcing the grand opening of Half Acre tomorrow.
Vice President for Administration Bill Mai addressed the issue of falling natural gas prices to the senate.
“As that revenue source continues to slide down, that is going to further compound the problem of funding,” Mai said. “In addition to sales and use taxes generated from all the years of activity on the rigs is [sic] quickly drying up.”
Natural gas has been one of Wyoming’s primary sources of income for the past decade. A lot of the money acquired because of natural gas comes from taxing oil companies to buy, sell and use equipment in their operations. The number of rigs currently running has dwindled drastically in the past couple of years.
“As of Tuesday, we have nine drilling rigs operating in this state,” Mai said. “Around two years ago, around this time, you would have seen about 80 rigs running.”
The staff senate also discussed potential increases in student fees. The potential increases would include an increase in lab fees for students in the arts and sciences.
“We have a FEPA committee that has suggested a bunch of fees going forward,” Mai said. “In arts and science a whole bunch of new lab fees have been proposed for this upcoming academic year, mostly because we have the new STEM building with equipment that may need replaced.”
Currently in most science labs, such as the lab in general chemistry, students are not charged for anything more than lab manuals. Mai expressed he has concerns the increase of lab fees would create an imbalance of cost between majors at the university.
“What does a chemistry major end up paying once you figure in all of these fees versus a humanitarians major?” Mai said. “What do the various majors cost once you factor in all the fees, and I think that has to be a part of the discussion.”
With the entire new infrastructure going up at UW, an increase in student fees looks inevitable.
Other Topics Discussed:
Half Acre, which has been undergoing renovations for the past two years, opened its gym to students last spring while the other half of the building continued renovation. The full building will finally be opened tomorrow at 11 a.m.
“There will be tours from 11 a.m. until 12 p.m.,” Schuler said. “there will also be refreshments served.”
