In November, about 75 graduate students showed up to a Student Senate meeting to voice their concerns about a resolution that would tax students for funds to renovate the Reitz Union.
The resolution, authored by Senate President Ashton Charles (now the Unite Party’s candidate for Student Body president), would call for students to pay for the proposed $42.5 million renovation with a new student fee.
Right now the average student pays $320 per year in fees to Student Government. These fees make up SG’s $14.4 million budget that funds RecSports, campus programs and student organizations, among other things. And at $10.65 per credit hour, according to Sen. Jonathan Ossip, the fee is already pretty hefty.
Charles’ bill would increase student fees by $3 per credit hour and a semesterly $20 flat.
Despite the initial protests, the resolution was passed. There was little debate on the merit of increasing student fees in a time of economic distress, and public discussions concerning other sources of fundraising (such as tapping into UF’s extensive alumni network or applying for state and federal grant money) were muzzled.
This is what happens when one party, in this case the Unite Party, holds 88 out of the 100 seats in our Student Senate.
After the resolution was forced through the Senate, Student Body President Jordan Johnson took the passed resolution to the UF Board of Trustees. Johnson used the resolution as evidence of full student support for increasing their own price of tuition to pay for Reitz Union renovations.
Don’t get out the pitchforks and lanterns just yet.
After outrage over the fees mounted, Student Senate leaders begrudgingly offered to put a referendum on the upcoming spring election ballot to let the students decide themselves. The same referendum, by the way, was what Student Alliance senators Ossip and Alan Yanuck authored last November as a cautious alternative to ignoring the Student Body. Their proposal — the proposal to let students vote — was rejected by the Unite Party 66 to 18.
Graduate assistants continued to protest the fees, and yesterday, after months of fighting, and with an election around the corner, Johnson wrote to the Alligator claiming he would prevent graduate assistants from being charged a fee. The problem is that it shouldn’t take an election to make SG listen. The very purpose of SG is to champion student voices. There’s a problem when it takes this long for the Unite Party to respond to student concerns, and it’s a problem that will now affect all students. Because graduate assistants were ignored by the Unite Party for so long, now other graduate students and undergraduates will have to pick up the tab.
So now all students have to pick up the tab for the Unite Party’s fiscal irresponsibility, their ad hoc leadership and their ears that are deaf to student concerns. Graduate assistants should be exempt from this fee, but so should everyone else. All students need to come together to reject this wasteful fee and elect leaders who will work to find other sources of funding.
This election season, it’s time to kick out the people who have taken the word “student” out of Student Government. It’s time to end single-party rule. It’s time to return Student Government back to the students.
Matthew Christ is a political science and journalism sophomore. He is running with the Student Alliance party to represent the college of journalism and communications.
