By Douglas Bell and Eric Reath
As student organization leaders, we have long been frustrated by the process in which student activity fee funds are allocated here at AU, and that there has been no clear method for students to try to change it.
For years, the process for dividing the revenue from the student activity fee has been stuck with the same formula: 72 percent of the undergraduate fee goes to Student Government, while 14 percent goes to the Student Media Board and 14 percent goes to the AU Club Council.
Over the past few weeks, we have seen the distribution of the student activity fee become a major topic of conversation on campus. It is clear that after more than a decade of the status quo, now is the time for student leaders to address how to make the student activity fee funding process more equitable and more transparent.
That is why this semester, we brought together a group of student leaders to conduct a thorough study of the student activity fee and to participate in this conversation with the student body about student organization funding. On April 17, our Student Activity Fee Study Committee released its comprehensive report and recommendations to the AU community. Our recommendations focus on formalizing a process by which student leaders can continually hold each other accountable for how they spend student funds and calls on those leaders to establish consistent standards of transparency so that they can also be held accountable by the student body.
We are also calling for the creation of a permanent advisory Student Activities Leadership Commission (SALC), with representation from SG, Media Board, Club Council, and the Graduate Leadership Council. Establishing SALC would allow it to oversee the transparency and accountability that the student activity fee needs and to facilitate a regular dialogue among these organizations.
It would be easy for every student organization to simply declare that they need more money. But talk is cheap. We need to establish a collaborative process by which student leaders can work together to take action. The student body should expect that of the leaders who represent them.
We encourage all of the student organizations at AU to work together to implement the recommendations that we have put forward in our report. We also ask that the incoming student leaders continue this conversation to help bring about a meaningful solution to this problem in the upcoming year.
Douglas Bell and Eric Reath are the co-chairs of the Student Activity Fee Study Committee. More info about the committee and our report are online at facebook.com/SAFSC.
Bell is a senior in the School of Communication, the general manager of ATV and former chair of the Student Media Board. Reath is a senior is the School of Public Affairs and the former comptroller of SG.
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