Senators postpone vote on $75 fee

By: Jay Balagna

Tuesday, November 3, 2009 - 2:18 AM

What: Continuation of ASUN Senate University Affairs Committee hearing on a proposed $75 per semester fee.

When: 7 p.m. Wednesday

Where: Rita Laden Senate Chambers, Joe Crowley Student Union

Read a live blog of Wednesday’s hearing over the fee

After a meeting that lasted almost three-and-a-half hours and packed the Rita Laden Senate Chambers for the first time this semester, a student senate committee postponed a vote on a proposed $75 student fee.

The majority of public commenters came to tell senators not to pass what they said they saw as an unnecessary fee.

The proposed fee is part of Associated Students of the University of Nevada President Eli Reilly’s Joint Vision 2017 plan. The plan, released more than a month ago, is meant to function as a rough list of goals for the undergraduate student government during the next eight years. One concrete proposal included in the plan, though, is a new $75 per semester fee.

The fee would be used to provide money to increase the presence of performing arts on campus, recreate the math and writing centers while making tutoring again free for students and launch a new student activities center that would take over many of the duties of ASUN.

If the $75 total is passed, it will dwarf a fee request from

the University of Nevada, Las Vegas on the Nevada System of Higher Education Board of Regents December agenda.

UNLV’s proposed fee, $1 per credit, would exclusively fund a tutoring center. It was proposed by UNLV President Neal Smatresk and was supported by the senate of the Consolidated Students of the University of Nevada, UNLV’s undergraduate student government according to The Rebel Yell, UNLV’s student newspaper.

The student activities center, which took up the most discussion time and drew the most comments from students at the meeting, takes up more than half of the proposed fee.

The proposed center, which would take in almost $1.2 million under the proposal, would take a major funding weight off ASUN by paying for adviser salaries, student publications and student wages for front desk and sound and lighting staff, in addition to other things that many at the meeting criticized as jobs of the undergraduate student government.

“This plan to me, sounds very similar to what ASUN is doing,” Nathan Devlin, a 20-year-old accounting major, said. “The difference is it’s being taken out of students’ hands.”

The committee on university affairs will continue the hearing at 7 p.m Wednesday. If the committee passes the fee proposal, it will head to a general senate vote before being passed on to the regents, who will have the final say on the fee’s approval. Reilly said he hopes to see the fee heard at the regents’ meeting in December.

“This is something that needs to be decided now,” he said.

That urgency is based mostly on what Reilly described as a need for ASUN to “stay relevant to students,” and the necessity of providing students with a free option for tutoring.

An academic success center, which would include a tutoring center, would receive $25 per student per semester from the fee.

Some senators disagreed with him, though, saying the large amount warranted a student vote or more discussion, even if it meant delaying its appearance before the regents.

“We would be doing a disservice to students if we passed this too quickly,” Sen. Jessica Purney said.

The university affairs committee will continue the hearing on the proposed fee at 7 p.m. Wednesday in the Rita Laden Senate Chambers in the Joe Crowley Student Union.

Jay Balagna can be reached at jbalagna@nevadasagbrush.com.