The number of student organizations on campus has skyrocketed from 400 clubs last year to a record 471 this year, presenting a problem on how to fund the groups.
The Student Association funding will plateau starting this fall because the last increase in SA fees has finally cycled through students. This means that money for student groups will decrease if the number of student organizations continues to rise.
In the past four years, funding for student organizations has steadily increased because of a previous increase in the student fee.
To compensate for the new student organizations without affecting existing and more established student groups, the SA should call for an increase in student fees.
Students pay $22.50 each semester to the Student Association to help put on events such as Spring Fling, Fall Fest, speaker events and sports games. To subsidize the increase in funding for student organizations, it would make sense to slightly raise this already small charge to benefit students by $5 per semester.
Incoming Student Association Finance Chair Alex Mizenko said with the current funding model, the only way to adequately fund new student organizations is to cut money to established organizations.
To pass a fee increase, there would have to be a vote in the Senate and a school-wide referendum.
Students should call on the Student Association to quickly move on this proposal, which represents students' investment in their time at the University. The amount paid into the system will benefit students during the next year.
After all, the growing number of student organizations on campus is a good thing for student life.
Patrick Rochelle, a junior majoring in English, is a Hatchet columnist.
“After all, the growing number of student organizations on campus is a good thing for student life.”
Not really. An arbitrary increase in the number of groups says nothing about their actual quality. Most schools have a fraction of the number of groups we do. Tons of our groups do exactly the same thing but insist on remaining independent. We should increase the fee, but we should also start grouping redundant student orgs together. 500+ groups, which we will have next year, is just absurd.
Raising the student fee is exactly the wrong way to go about attacking this issue. We have 471 groups on campus, many of which have few members and conduct minimal programming. If we want to continue to be serious about managing the SA bank (which Bennett and Mizenko did an exceptional job of doing this year), you need to be tough on the auditing of organizations.
Some organizations are (as the previous commenter said)endlessly repetitive and others could be better integrated into an umbrella group (like MSSC, JSA, etc).
Bottom line, there is no reason to further tax students without first trying to better manage the existing organizations to maximize their efficiency.
The truth is – there is tons of money that can be cut from certain student org budgets. There are tons of over-funded groups on campus on a $/member basis (College Republicans). At the same time, it is true that many can barely find the funding to go on essential club trips etc. For most organizations funding comes in spurts (either too much or too little). Before higher fees, we need less SA senators. Additionally – MCGB Chair should be paid less, (but that’s a scholarship from the school) and the senators should be given a stipend. That way they can be held ACCOUNTABLE to the student body, and even the Hatchet.
Regards,
SA Vice President for _____________
Also – The SA needs to go back to doing co-sponsorships. By removing this process it reduced the work of senators, but did not improve overall efficiency of allocations. It gives organizations incentive to inflate their budgets and overspend later in the year.
Student orgs were doing that before anyway.
First, I’d like to commend Patrick on a good editorial. If students want to keep making student orgs (whether its good or bad), they should pony up a few more dollars.
The problem at GWU is that every student wants a title, so they make a new student org to get a title. I have very sad news for you: being Treasurer of the GW Mountain Climbing Club won’t push you over the edge for Grad School.
I wanted you to know I think your articial in the August23ed issue was great. But the fact of the matter is you done the story about the wrong employees if your opinion is that they don’t make the cut with faculity then what is your opinion on staff the true leg work to this university. They don’t get it they set in there coushioned offices and make grand plands and who gets the rewards when it’s all said and done definetly not the people who do the real work around here. Well thats my opinion thanks at least you scratched the surface and that is somthing.