Fee recommendations to go directly to Board
Published Feb. 22, 2008
The volume of the MU student voice to the UM system Board of Curators has increased.
Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs Cathy Scroggs said the Board of Curators will receive more detailed reports of Missouri Students Association Senate and Student Fee Review Committee recommendations. The Board of Curators is the governing board for all four campuses in the UM system.
“In the past, I don’t think that adequate information about student concerns has been conveyed to the board,” student representative to the Board of Curators Tony Luetkemeyer said.
Luetkemeyer said in the past, documents concerning student opinion and recommendations such as those from the SFRC and Senate have originated at the campus level and were then submitted to MU finance administrators. MU administration made the final decision about proposals and recommendations to be sent to the Board of Curators, Luetkemeyer said.
Concern over the issue of misrepresentation of student opinion arose in January when a document submitted to the Board of Curators inaccurately defined decisions made by SFRC and Senate.
On Jan. 17, the Board of Curators received the recommendation of a $3.66 health fee increase. The document stated, “The Student Fee Review Committee and the MSA Senate support these proposals.”
Senate did not agree to support the proposal. On Nov. 27, Senate recommended a fee increase of $2.32 per semester per student to account for the state inflation rate, but not the $4.02 increase requested by the Student Health Center for additional programs. In the bill, SFRC proposed the Counseling Center, Student Health Center and Wellness Resource Center instead meet to “clarify roles and collaborate to make sure they are meeting the needs of students and to reduce duplications such as alcohol counseling.”
Changes to the way that student recommendations are submitted to the Board of Curators will also be made. Luetkemeyer said that under the new plan, the Board of Curators would receive a detailed report directly from students stating their suggestions, rather than just a final MU recommendation decision from the administration.
MSA Senate Speaker Jonathan Mays said the new plan only corresponds to concerns over the proposal for the health fee increase, which the board tabled Jan. 31. Mays said any SFRC recommendations MSA Senate passed would be sent to Scroggs by March 5, and Scroggs would submit those reports to the Board of Curators by March 10. Mays said MSA Senate hopes to continue the process of sending student recommendations directly to the Board of Curators for other issues as well.
Mays said changes must be made to the timeline along which SFRC recommendations must be sent to administrators. The current timeline does not allow adequate time for the SFRC to consider state inflationary increases, Mays said. MSA Senate is requesting the deadline be pushed past Jan. 15 when the Consumer Price Index is made public.
Luetkemeyer said submitting detailed reports directly from the students might make a difference.
“In the past, if there was a disagreement between the students and the administration, news of that disagreement never made it to the board,” Luetkemeyer said. “Now, it will. If the student government brings up a valid point as to why a few should be set at a different rate than what the administration suggests, and makes a compelling case, I think the board would have no problem siding with the students.”
