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15 November 2002
uwRyan.com This website is meant to provide value to UW student by delivering information. It will also supplement the column that I write for Imprint by providing extra information on some of the topics about which I will write in addition to the text of each column. Please provide feedback on what I write as well as give me suggestions of topics to cover. You can send e-mail to me to ryan[at]uwryan[dot]com.
uwstudent.org
Federation of Students 
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Students should control the SLCFeds in a Student Life Centre racket
Imagine living in a house that you paid for, but where your roommate can raise the rent. This is the situation in the SLC, where students are paying for most of the construction but the Feds hold the authority to decide for the space. University administration and Feds executive members have raised the rent paid by non-Feds student organizations but not the rent paid by operations they run, Feds' offices and business and Food Services. The problem is not that they increased rent, but that it was done without informing others and that Feds received preferential treatment. Here I will refer to space cost plus additional charges combined as rent, because together they are the amount that individuals or groups pay for the space they lease. Students are paying for most of the construction and some of the operation of the SLC, but Feds and the university make decisions about it in unpublished meetings. Students paid for the SLC but the Feds executive is representing its own interests on the SLC's management board. The Student Life Centre Management Board consists of five voting members: Feds President Brenda Koprowski, Feds vice president administration and finance Chris Di Lullo, associate provost human resouces and student services Catharine Scott, UW vice president administration and finance Dennis Huber and a student-at-large. At its meeting on October 30, the SLC Management Board voted to increase rent for, Imprint and WPIRG what they call external student organizations. These organizations previously paid cost, but will now be charged cost plus extra revenue. Under the 1993 SLC operating agreement, Food Services pays the same rate for its space, Brubakers, as Feds does for its offices. Food Services gets cheap rent because it contributed to the construction of the building. Because of this it is in the interest of both Feds and the university to keep what Feds pays low. The university would want Feds to pay low rent to keep Food Services costs down and Feds would want to keep its own costs down. How can Imprint and WPIRG be considered external when Feds is not? All three organizations were created by and endorsed by students. Feds VPAF Chris Di Lullo justified the increases by saying that Imprint and WPIRG get funding from other sources, whereas increases to other organizations' rent would be passed on to students. This is specious. All organizations and businesses in the Student Life Centre receive funding from students and can influence that funding. Any business operation, like Brubakers, charges money to students as consumers; student organizations, including Feds, receive student fees; and the Turnkey Desk receives half its funding from the Student Services Fee. Any one of these groups faced with higher rent cost would either have to lower other costs or increase revenue including, possibly, revenue from students. The only difference between non-Feds student organizations and the Feds is that the Feds president is on the board and can influence decisions on fee increases. Clearly it would be strange to try to squeeze Imprint and WPIRG with higher rents to prevent the cost from being passed on by opposing a fee increase. This is, however, on what the argument is based. Another aspect of the argument for the rent increase is that Imprint and WPIRG have sources of revenue other than student fees and the increased rent may be paid from those sources. Note that Feds also has other revenue from its business operations. Increasing the rent cost will cost students, if not monetarily, then through the resources available to serve them. In the end the issue is not the amount of money, but that Feds are getting preferential treatment because they are the ones who are treating themselves. |