Senators fatigue after more than an hour of deliberating whether to allocate $50,000 to host a high profile hip hop artist as a concert free to UW students. The amount was increased to $70,000 and approved by senate on Tuesday.
The Associated Students of the University of Wyoming pushed through legislation at the Tuesday senate meeting to host a high-profile concert in honor of ASUW’s 100th anniversary.
The senate moved to committee of the whole to discuss the bill as a committee would normally at a separate meeting. This strategy is used to push through time-sensitive legislation. The legislation passed committee and went on to be discussed on the floor of the senate in the same evening.
ASUW Vice President Brett Kahler, author of the bill, originally requested $50,000 toward making a large-scale concert free to UW students. The April event will be the culmination of two weeks of 100th year celebration activities on campus.
No one would name the artist or artists they were considering, but Kahler did say it would be a top 40 hip hop artist “in the realms of what you would hear on a NOW music CD or on the hit music station.”
Kahler said this legislation is time sensitive because scheduling dates for the target artists were “vanishing like a glass of water in the summer in Arizona.”
Securing the venue was another time-sensitive issue. Kahler said the goal was to use the University of Wyoming Arena Auditorium, which is the 15,000-seat venue where the basketball teams play. ASUW partners, such as Concerts and Convocations, were apprehensive about springing for that venue without a monetary pledge from ASUW. The total cost of the event is estimated to be $170,000.
After talking with representatives who book concerts on campus, senators raised the amount to $70,000 to ensure that the concert will indeed be free to UW students, which many felt was an important part of the legislation.
“Students already pay a fee. If we are asking them to come to our birthday party, why are we charging them a fee,” Kahler said. “I can’t think of another way to say the money we have received from students can go right back to them.”
The money for the concert comes from the ASUW reserve fund. According to ASUW President Joel Defebaugh, the reserve is made up of student fee dollars that are not spent in other areas of ASUW funding. That reserve is meant to stay below $300,000.
ASUW currently has a reserve fund of $420,192, which is $120,192 above the ceiling. Senators and executives have been exploring ways to spend the excess reserve, but no other ideas have been brought to senate.
Opinions on the bill were wide-ranging and contentious, especially in the beginning. Some senators did not want to vote on this without first having a chance to speak with their constituents.
“I feel so uncomfortable spending reserve money without being able to talk to my college. We’ve seen the detriment that can come down on ASUW for spending that reserve money without adequately polling and talking to students,” Sen. Mariah McKay said.
Sen. Joshua Messer said the few students he had a chance to speak with were not in favor of spending the money on one concert.
“A lot of what I’ve been hearing is that the students are not okay with this. They think we should be spending this money on something that will benefit them for a long time, rather than a concert for one night,” Messer said.
Most senators were either in favor or came around to being in favor by the end of the meeting.
“This is an experience students will carry for a long time in their memories of what happened while they were here. To see the AA [Arena Auditorium] finally filled, potentially with students, I think is an awesome sight,” said Defebaugh. “Last year ASUW spent $125,000 for a statue in the middle of campus and we just spent $75,000 for special projects. Relatively, this isn’t a huge chunk of change for ASUW.”
Senators said it was their duty to give the reserve dollars back to the students within a reasonable amount of time and that creating a memorable night would be a good way to accomplish that.
“We spend thousands of dollars on giving away food. Do you think anybody remembers a cupcake we gave away last year?” Sen. Jaryd Unangst said.
The bill passed 23-4. The artist will be revealed when the contracts have been signed.
