SGA continues process for student fees hearings

The process for deciding the budget for student fees continued on Wednesday when Student Government Association met to look at the Student Fees Committee’s recommendations.

The College of Fine Arts requested $77,000 to pay for fine arts events on campus and expensive production costs. 

“The College of Fine Arts does over 500 performances and presentations every academic year…and it costs a lot of money,” said Rodney Miller, the Dean of the College of Fine Arts. 

Approval of the request means students could attend fine arts events for free.  The money requested would also go toward building a sculpture garden.

“One of the things that we have been wanting to try to do since I got here is to provide a space for our sculpture students to exhibit their work,” Miller said. “By accruing money over a two- or three-year period I think we could probably get enough to really make a nice sculpture garden.”

The $77,000 comes out to about $.25 per credit hour. For a student taking the minimum full-time amount of 12 hours, this adds up to $3 of their student fee bill. Students wanting to go to Fine Arts events on campus will not have to pay to attend fine arts events. 

The College of Fine Arts usually requests about $20,000 each year for production costs from supplemental student fees. If they get funding from student fees, these requests would no longer be necessary.

A few funding bills from supplemental student fees were also introduced for the first time Wednesday. Supplemental student fees are funds collected every year from the surplus of students paying into the student fees system. Unspent funds carry over every year to help groups that may need more funding than originally given at the beginning of the fiscal year.

These supplemental bills being proposed are to fund the Heskett Center, Model UN, the Counseling and Testing Center, the Debate Team, Fine Arts, and the Rhatigan Student Center. They totaled $363,030.

This meeting qualified as a “first read” meaning that nothing has been decided and the senate will debate and make their own recommendations after the “second read” during the next meeting on Feb. 27th.

All student fees requests and the supplemental requests will go through a second read on Feb. 27th. SGA then votes on new recommendations for the student fee requests that will be forwarded to WSU President John Bardo for approval.

During the meeting, SGA also approved the American Choral Directors Association as a new Registered Student Organization. 

SGA does not meet this week due to nine members attending a Model UN event in St. Louis.