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MELISSA KOONTZ/KANSAN
Tyler Childress, left, and Pantaleon Florez III, right observe Student Senate Student Union Activites fee cut meeting. Members from SUA attended the meeting on Wednesday.
Senate approves SUA fee cut amendment
MELISSA KOONTZ/KANSAN
Mark Savoy, student senator and law student representative, speaks in the Union Wednesday, March 5. Student Union Activities presented an amendment to its proposed student fee cut.
TOM DEHART
news@kansan.com
Student Union Activities presented an amendment in front of Student Senate Wednesday to maintain the current $5 Activities fee instead of the proposed 50 cent cut to $4.50. This fee amendment would bring no change during the current year, but the amendment was accepted for next year.
Senate has voiced its concerns that SUA should participate in more multicultural, academic events as opposed to the social events that SUA hosts. Tyler Childress, senate chief of staff, said one of the concerns regarding SUA is the number of educational and multicultural events being presented as part of the total event planning.
According to the information presented by SUA at the Senate meeting on Wednesday, the SUA hosted a total of 37 academic and cultural events in the academic year of 2012-13. These events included a total of four Fall Gallery showings, events that reached a total attendance of 2,500, and hosting the Common Book Author, an event that had 600 people in attendance.
The academic year of 2013-14 is set to host 35 academic and cultural events this year.
Danica Hoose, the senator for Queers and Allies, said that SUAs social events function as a way for members of the LGBTQ community to socialize in a safe environment. Michael Graham, the Senate treasurer, presented an email that he received in the past week. According to Graham, the email was from a person currently or previously affiliated with SUA. The email voiced concerns regarding
SUA leadership and fiscal responsibility. Questions were raised about the email's authenticity, and the identity was never disclosed by a
MITCH RUCKER Student senator
"I think it's a matter of priorities," Rucker said in an afternoon interview before the Senate meeting on Wednesday. "Times are tough right now.
"Obviously, we as senators wouldn't be doing our job if we weren't critically evaluating the necessity."
Obviously, we as senators wouldn't be doing our job if we weren't critically evaluating the necessity. The impact of each and every fee that we charge our students. So the Fee Review Committee met and determined that it was appropriate to propose a 50
Mitch Rucker, senator of the Junior, Senior College of Liberal Arts, said that cutting student fees such as the SUA fee is a way to put money back into the students' pockets.
member from SUA, who was in attendance at the meeting for verification.
cent cut to SUA."
Dylan Fehl, the spirit committee assistant coordinator for SUA, said that he was pleased with the 50 cent raise in the SUA student fee.
"My initial reaction was, we were pleased as an organization that hopefully we get to retain our $5 student fee. Of course that is going to be up for vote by full senate next week."
"On the issue of fiscal responsibility, I feel we are very fiscally responsible," Fehl said. "We have a very strenuous process of how we buy things and where we go when we buy it."
Fehl also stated that, aside from some criticism of the organization not possessing a lack of fiscal responsibility.
Edited by Blair Sheade
Committee fails conduct code draft, continues discussion
The recently proposed student conduct code by the Office of Student Affairs unanimously failed at the Student Rights Committee meeting Wednesday. The cde proposed a change in jurisdiction to include off-campus activity and the reformatting of the document.
"We need to make sure that student freedoms are being held," said Student Rights Committee member Natalie Parker.
the code was reformatted based on four major values: respect, integrity, responsibility and community, which intended to make it easier for students to understand.
"Our code just read 1970s on it and the world has changed since the 1970s," said Jane Tuttle, assistant vice provost of student affairs. "It's written in language that I think should be clear to any undergraduate student that KU has admitted, where to be honest sometimes the language we currently operate under, I'm not sure all students really understand that."
However, some members of the committee felt that it could lead to something being overlooked. There was also concern about how the language of the proposed draft seemed to shift away from outlining the rights and responsibilities of students.
"The proposed conduct code focused more on the philosophy of the University of Kansas community and was not as specific on what rights were afforded to students." committee member junior Zach George said.
"if it's not broken, why fix it?" George said. "There's no testimony that says there are problems with the current code."
Previous revisions, which are done every two years, have been smaller amendments to the original code, offering more transparency. Many committee members believed that this revision should follow that format as well.
The Student Rights Committee will recommend the final draft to Student Senate after its meeting March 26.
McKenna Harford
A resolution urging the athletics department to fund women's and non-revenue sports is slated for voting in next week's full Student Senate meeting.
The resolution was amended last night to update and strengthen the phrasing, after it was referred back to the University Affairs Committee last week.
"I feel it was necessary to explore this from all angles and come fully prepared with language that reflects the needs of our student body," said Garrett Farlow, a University Affairs associate and freshman from Tecumseh.
Proposed resolution to eliminate the women's and non-revenue fee
The new language emphasized the importance of federal Title IX compliance and respect for student athletes; however, it stated the $25 fee inflicted on students is unjust.
The fee that totals $1 million annually is collected by the
athletics department to offset travel expenses for women's and non-revenue sports.
If passed next week, the resolution will be sent to the following: Chancellor Bernadette Gray-Little, Kansas Board of Regents, Kansas Athletics, Public Affairs and the Provost.
The resolution supported the decision made by the Student Senate Fee Review Committee that proposed to eliminate the student fee and encourage the athletic department to look elsewhere for funding.
Previous Senate discussions have raised the question as to why the money must come from students' pockets as opposed to the athletics department that rakes in a multi-million dollar revenue.
"We think they have sufficient funds to be paying this already," said Emma Halling, student body vice president.
— Amelia Arvesen
Index CLASSIFIEDS 2B CRYPTOQUIPS 5A SPORTS 1B CROSSWORD 5A OPINION 4A SUOOKU 5A
All contents. unless stated otherwise, © 2014 The University Daily Kansan
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