The Georgetown University Student Association voted Tuesday to support a proposal to provide greater funding for student activities.
The proposal puts forward two approaches to supplement the current operating budget for student activities. First, it seeks to establish a student activities fee of $50 a semester and second, requests that the university designate $3 million of Georgetown’s Third Century Campaign’s new $1 billion goal toward a student activities endowment.
“Our proposal strives to establish a student activities endowment to ensure the long term stability of student activities,” said Marty LaFalce (CAS ’03), the sophomore GUSA representative who co-wrote the proposal with Catie Sheehan (CAS ’01).
All voting members of GUSA, except Trey Street (SFS ’03), voted to support the proposal. Additionally, the members of the Student Activities Commission, the group that current allocates money to student groups, voted unanimously to support the proposal.
“By establishing a student activities fee, we are condoning the inefficiency of the university … I support the endowment but I think we should do that without the fee,” Street said.
Terry Platchek (CAS ’01), chair of SAC, said he supports the student activities fee.
“We realize that the university will increase our tuition every year. SAC believes that we are getting that increase, we should have some of it go toward something a great number of students across campus agree is a concern,” Platchek said.
On Feb. 2, the proposal will be brought to a referendum for the student body. If a majority of the students who vote support the proposal, it will then be presented to the Main Campus Planning Committee. If approved by the committee, the proposal will be brought to the Board of Directors who will make the final decision on the student activities fee.
“I think this is a creative and responsive proposal,” said Dorothy Brown, University Provost. “It demonstrates a good sense of student responsibility and shows [the students] are planning for the long term.”
Brown and Darryl Christmon, Chief Finance Officer of the Provost, are responsible for managing the main campus budget. Their support indicates that Brown will include the student activities fee in the budget they propose to the Board of Directors in Feb., according to Juan Gonzalez, Vice President of Student Affairs.
The student activities fee will be phased in, beginning at $25 for the 2001-02 academic year and will reach it’s goal of $50 in 2003-04.
“We are concerned about the total costs of the fee so we would accept a phase in. We are not prepared to have the full program go through all at once,” Brown said.
“This increased funding will bring Georgetown much closer to the funding level of its peer institutions,” according to the funding proposal. Dartmouth charges an annual fee of $150 for student activities.
Currently the university allocates $389, 784 per year to Georgetown’s six funding boards: SAC, Georgetown Program Board, the Performing Arts Activity Council, Volunteer and Public Service, the Media Board and the Advisory Board of Club Sports.
GUSA’s funding proposal supports a fee that all students would pay to fund student activities. Half the money generated from this fee would be added to the current operating budget for student activities and the other half would be invested in the University’s endowment dedicated to student activities.
The proposal upholds that the money from the fee allocated directly to student activities would be allocated by a new organization, the GUSA Funding Board. The funding board would include the GUSA President and a representative from each of the six groups that currently allocates funds to student groups. The group would also be comprised of four advisory members: the Vice President of Student Affairs, the Vice Chair of GUSA and two GUSA representatives.
According to the proposal, if everything goes as planned by 2011 the total student activities operating budget would rise to $1.2 million, the endowment would be $9.2 million and the student activities fee could be phased out completely.
“We have talked about implementing a student activities endowment in the past. This is by far the closest we have come to its implementation and the best proposal I’ve seen,” Platchek said.
“The most recent study suggests that between 83 and 87 percent of Georgetown student participate in club, athletics or a service organization … I think that students will vote in favor of the proposal,” said Tawan Davis (CAS ’01), president of GUSA.
