At an emergency meeting of the Undergraduate Council of Students Thursday night, members discussed a proposed $54 increase of the student activities fee. But despite the lengthy debate, a vote will not take place until next Wednesday's meeting, when the body will again examine the proposal.
Currently set at $136, the fee is included in student tuition and constitutes the entire budget that the Undergraduate Finance Board allocates to student groups. Established in 1989 as a $96 payment, the fee was increased at roughly 5 percent each year for several years, but it has been raised only once since 1993.
"UFB is racked for funds," said Student Activities Committee chair Cash McCracken '08 as the meeting began. "This is a severe crisis."
Due to the budget shortfall, "almost every student group is underfunded, (and UFB is) unable to take on new groups," McCracken said.
UFB Chair Swathi Bojedla '07, who attended the meeting, said that as UFB budget constraints have forced student groups to seek additional funding beyond UFB, the organization has become the secondary, rather than primary, fund allocator to student groups, after the University administration.
UFB Vice Chair Andy DeWitt '06 likened the group's funding mission to that of a sinking ship sailing into a foggy horizon. A $54 hike, he said, would give the ship a new hull.
In the last fiscal year, UFB ran a $70,104 deficit, and only one month into this school year, this year's projected deficit is at least $20,000. Members described being forced to repeatedly cut individual groups' funding in an attempt to spread their static budget over a growing number of needs as a "disheartening" and "mind-numbing" experience.
"It's a huge disincentive for students to do things they really want to do," said Jon Margolick '06, UCS representative on UFB. "If we had more money in the student activities budget, we could make it a really phenomenal opportunity for students to do whatever strikes their fancy."
Although the budget crisis has been building over recent years, McCracken said UCS was putting forth a proposal this semester because Vice President for Campus Life and Student Services David Greene had expressed interest in presenting it at the Corporation meeting next weekend.
In February, then-UCS Presi-dent Joel Payne '05 told The Herald that UCS had not proposed a fee increase last year because it failed to organize a resolution in time.
Consensus in favor of an increase emerged as Thursday's meeting progressed, but the selection of $54 as the appropriate value generated prolonged debate.
After an initial suggestion of a $20 increase, a larger one "seems drastic," McCracken said. How-ever, he and other UCS members who have served on UFB explained that the figure was a rough projection of what the current fee would be if a 5 percent yearly increase had continued after 1993.
Tensions were evident as UCS representatives argued whether the projection justified the $54 figure. At one point, UCS Vice President Sarah Saxton-Frump '07 interrupted the discussion and urged members to be respectful in their comments.
Brown's current student activities fee falls in the middle when compared to Ivy peers, according to McCracken. But McCracken added that student groups at some peer institutions benefit from significant endowments as well. While some Brown groups receive alumni donations to supplement their activities, none are fully endowed.
"When students come to Brown they come because they expect our University to treat them as adults with creativity and big plans," Margolick said. "They don't get that."
Despite repeated concerns that students be informed and included in the fee increase process, few non-UCS or UFB members were in attendance. The entire undergraduate student body received successive e-mail notifications of the meeting, but only one student not in either body raised a question at Thursday's meeting.
Although the resolution remains in draft form and has not yet been officially approved by UCS, it will be posted on the organization's Web site in the interest of including the general community.
