Tuesday’s meeting of ASUW ran late as the senators discussed Senate Resolution No. 2545.
SR No. 2545 “Proposed Mandatory Student Fee Increases for Fiscal Year 18” states that ASUW supports UW’s increase in student fees. The resolution was introduced over Spring Break when the senate was out of session.
Information about proposed student services fees had been introduced earlier after the resolution had been written. As the resolution was discussed, amendments were added to include the information about student success fees.
The new student success fee will be distributed around campus from the library support center to STEP.
“The new student success fee will be distributed to STEP, student success centers, the library support, the technology commons, the art/ archive museum, learning and interdisciplinary opportunities, student advising coordination and center for career services and training,” Senator Ben Wetzel said. “It’s going to be distributed to a lot of different departments.”
Time concerining this resolution is a concern as the Board of Trustees is expected to vote on the fees today.
This is not the first-time ASUW has been under a time crunch when it comes to deciding on mandatory student fees.
“The [UW] administration sprung this on us over spring break and they did it last year too,” Senator Joel Defebaugh said. “This is not the first time they’ve done this.”
Defebaugh said that under UW regulation, ASUW has the right to review mandatory student fees before they are voted on.
“Uni-Reg 8249, which gives ASUW power, has been on the books for over 100 years,” he said. “It has always said that we have the ability to authorize, review and recommend mandatory student fees.”
Defebaugh suggested that ASUW demand more time to consider the fees.
“I want to send President Rotellini to the Board of Trustees and demand that they give the time to think about these mandatory student fees and talk to our constituents and show the Board of Trustees this is not acceptable,” Defebaugh said
Senator Kerbs suggested the senate amend the resolution to include a statement that not enough time was given to ASUW to appropriately access the fees.
“I think there’s an alternative route,” he said. “What we can do is amend this to say we were not given enough time.”
In the end, ASUW decided to add an amendment that they would not support the Board of Trustees voting on the fees until they had time to review the fees themselves.
“I think we’ve reached a really, really good fighting stance of going in front of the Board Thursday to make sure that we provide the right message,” Wetzel said.
Resolution No. 2545 was passed unanimously.
Vice President Wolfgang and Chief of Staff Hernandez also spoke about the Conference on Student Government Associations held at Texas A&M three weeks ago and their experiences.
Senate Bills No. 2540 “Creation of the ASUW intersession Oversight Committee,” No. 2541 “Sara Axelson Medal of Meritorious Service,” Senate Resolution No. 2544 “ASUW Recommendation on Programmatic Fee” were passed.
