The Board of Trustees approved the student affairs fee book for the 2023-24 academic session during their second day of the January board session last week.
One of the more significant changes for students is a 15% increase in the housing and dining fee for the UW Residence Life and Dining Department.
This will lead to a dramatic increase in students paying out of pocket for rent, dormitory payments, and access to the Washakie Dining Center.
According to the report provided by the trustee budget committee, the increase in the housing and dining fee can be attributed to many factors: inflation , the 22% increase in price of utilities in recent years, the 13% increase in food costs, upkeep of building maintenance, bond issues, and the attempt to stay competitive with salaries for Residence Life and Dining employees.
Rent will be increased in the 2023-24 academic year depending on size and accommodations of different university apartments. Bison Run tenants, for example, will see monthly prices rise between 5.7-8.5% e. Moreover, areas like Landmarks will receive 6-7%, River Village 6-12.2%, and Spanish Run 8.8-9.25%.
Even more dramatically, students staying in the dorms with standard double twin rooms could see a 15% increase to the semesterly installments.
Those with a single room in the dorms will see the most significant increase of 15.9%.
Washakie will see an average increase of 15% in the cost of meal plans across the board, while students staying over the summer will see a rise of 25% in all meal plans.
Despite the Central Fee Book committee supporting the 15% increase in housing and dining fee, the ASUW senate recommended that cost only be increased by 7.75%, which the student senate suggested based on national average inflation numbers.
“I think more broadly ASUW concerns about the increase in cost of housing and dining on campus is just multiplied by campus wages staying the same and the increase of tuition and fees,” ASUW President Allison Brown said,
“I understand staffing is challenging for Residents Life and Dining Services to supply good housing and dining for students, but certainly this is a large increase in what students will be paying for housing and dining on a campus that is getting way more expensive.”
Despite the advocacy against the 15% increase from the student government, multiple trustees argued that the changes are necessary for adequate housing and dining services moving forward. They applauded the residence life and dining staff for keeping costs down so far.
The proposed fee book that included the recommendations for a 15% fee increase to housing and dining passed unanimously amongst the board of trustees.
Strategic Plan
The UW strategic plan was approved after almost “200 individual unit dialogues were carried out and almost a dozen idea labs,” UW president Ed Seidel said.
The second form of the strategic plan received feedback due to the specific support language of tribal communities in the value section. The opposing trustees hoped for the replacement of the language with the support of Wyoming values.
As the specific line of discussion in the drafted strategic plan value section stated, we value “Our partnership and engagement with thriving Wyoming and tribal communities in the creation and exchange of knowledge and resources.”
Trustee member Dave True, back in the November board session, stated that “by inclusion of a single group you are naturally excluding all other groups.”
The strategic plan team justified the addition of tribal support language as it came from a place of recognizing geopolitical factors with the sovereign nation and the grounds that the university was located on.
This position seems to have been forgotten since the Nov. 2022 meeting, as the finalized version now reads, “Our partnership and engagement with Wyoming communities in the creation and exchange of knowledge and resource.”
Although additional language can now be found in the value proposition in the finalized section stating that “UW is an intellectual powerhouse that fosters transdisciplinary collaboration to address the most complex challenges facing Wyoming, America, indigenous nations, and the world.
When clarifying the changes made, President Seidel remarked that “you asked us [the Board of Trustees] to make sure that the language is inclusive of communities across the state and we tried to be very clear about that.”
The Native American Education, Research and Cultural Center did not respond to multiple requests for comments concerning the discussion of the removal of tribal support language in Nov. 2022.
The ASUW executive branch declined to comment in Nov. 2022 if they believed in the outlook stated by trustee True when the original conversation around the removal of the language began.
ASUW President Brown stated that ASUW is “not in the position to comment” as they maintained working relationships with the board of trustees “and advocate at the highest level for students possible on important issues such as this.”
Enrollment
Provost Kevin Carmon proposed that UW moving forward needs to re-look at its business plan when it comes to student enrollment and the funding for programs receiving surplus students.
Although the university looks to increase its population of 11,000 students, according to Carmon, budgetary issues may restrain UW from hitting its unestablished student population goal.
“You could argue that could be a sort of an incentive to decrease the number of students if you have the same amount of money,” Carmain said, addressing the block grant fund that the University receives that is not adjusted based on enrollment numbers.
A similar issue exists when it comes to newer and current academic programs that receive a greater amount of students compared to others.
“A good example is our construction management program that has just grown by leaps and bounds very quickly,” Carmen said.
“There’s nothing built into that per se that says when you get more students you get more faculty or more resources, and therefore at some point it becomes a disincentive to continue to grow.”
The provost also announced that UW currently has 15% of its classes online and has a student-to-teacher ratio of 13:1.
Discussion and updates of the UW orientation program Saddle Up stayed in the student affairs committee and did not join the primary debate at the UW board meeting.
Creation of committees and Reports
ASUW President Brown announced the creation of an Ad-Hoc committee within ASUW concerning the topic of student wages and employment groups.
The student body president also briefed the board on students’ worries on both sides of the political spectrum of freedom of expression issues due to recent events in the UW Union.
“I do think that this is one of the major issues on campus this spring and will continue into the fall and I think the ways in which we you know work to resolve it now will have lasting impacts that are really critical.”
The ASUW President remarked that she was looking forward to sitting on president Seidel’s working group of freedom of expression and looking forward to the result the committee may produce.
While President Seidel announced the creation of a committee that will focus on the application and effects of ChatGPT on higher education at UW.
Seidel would give an example of the power of the artificial intelligence chatbot software to the board of trustees by showing how the application successfully compared American manifest destiny to Japanese empire expansion in WW2 in the form of a Bob Dylan song.
“I then asked it to write a short charge to a group to make recommendations to the Provost on how to handle ChatGPT in university classes,” Seidel said.
“I did not actually give to the committee, but we could have it was pretty darn good.”
Seidel then took it a step further by asking the artificial intelligence to provide recommendations that the committee may give. Which the software was able to do in “five very logical recommendations,” Seidel said.
The committee recommendations concerning ChatGPT at UW will be released from the committee later this year.
Finally, The Board of Trustees, with the last act for the January session, approved the re-contracting of UW president Seidel’s contract till 2026 with the university.
