Editorial: Deaton lets us down again

Aug. 26, 2008

We aren't entirely surprised that MU administrators have again ignored the student voice in the final stages of a decision-making process, but we are, as usual, upset. This time, Chancellor Brady Deaton rejected a decade-long campaign by students aimed toward moving $750,000 in student fees from an account used for Hearnes Center maintenance into the Student Fee Capital Improvement Committee fund.

In 1969, the UM system Board of Curators voted to allow MU to collect an additional $8 student fee to pay off loans used to build the Hearnes Center, stating in writing that all costs of building operation and maintenance would be provided by other funding, and not from the Hearnes Center fee. Students began to pay the $8 fee in 1972 and continued until 2004 - nine years after the loans had already been paid off. The funds collected from 1995 to 2004 come out to about $1 million, and the Missouri Students Association proposed that the sum be transferred to the SFCIC, a fund dedicated to providing student groups with allocations for purchases that will improve student life on campus. Because returning the $8 fees to the individuals who paid them in years past would be impractical, transferring the funds to SFCIC is a logical way to return the money to MU students.

In May 2007, the Hearnes Center Committee voted to transfer $750,000 - three quarters of the fund - to SFCIC, but despite their recommendation, Athletic Director Mike Alden denied the proposal. Alden did agree to give SFCIC half of the interest accrued from the account, which totaled about $12,000 to $15,000 - an amount nowhere near the Hearnes Center Committee's suggestion. Former MSA President Rachel Anderson and former Vice President Andrew Cafourek appealed Alden's decision to Deaton, and 10 months later, Deaton sent a memo simply agreeing with Alden.

There are a number of problems with this situation, the first being that the Board of Curators originally prohibited the Hearnes Center from using any cash from the fund for maintenance, and now the money is being used for exactly that. This happened because students continued to pay the fee even after loans were paid off, and as the money had no specific place to go, the Hearnes Center could essentially use it for whatever they pleased.

In May 2007, some Hearnes Center Committee members discussed what should be done with the accumulated funds, and could not find any documentation from 1995 that stated intentions for what would be done as the fee continued to accumulate. Essentially, this provided a loophole for Hearnes Center administrators to use the resulting funds for "operation and maintenance."

There's problem number two: lack of documentation. Administrators should be responsible for holding onto minutes from all meetings, and should be required to state, in writing, what they plan to use student fees for if not for their intended purposes. There should never be a "lack of documentation" concerning something so significant as $1 million in student fees.

And of course, there's the issue of administrations plugging their ears and ignoring the student voice. In this case, MSA did everything they possibly could to persuade the advisory committee, Alden and Deaton that transferring the money was the most fair and logical way to deal with the sum. They followed all the rules, talked with the right people, followed the process and did so with professionalism and persistence. And yet Deaton still denied the proposal - after avoiding it for 10 months.

While we could dwell on our frustrations with the administration, we also want to take a moment to applaud MSA on all of the work they've put in and the attempts they've made to return MU student funding to MU students. Even though Deaton may have vetoed the plan, your efforts did not go unnoticed - just take this work and apply it to other situations that address students' needs.

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Editorial: Deaton lets us down again

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