Student activities fees are moving on up. Yesterday, GUSA’s Student Activities Fee Endowment reform passed referendum with 1,703 votes in favor and 743 against.
The reform will increase the student activities fee to $62.50 per semester during the 2011-2012 academic year, then to $75 per semester the following academic year. After that, the fee will increase indefinitely at the standard rate of inflation. The whole of the fee will be allocated to student activities, unlike the current policy which allocates half to activities and half to an endowment.
After online polls closed at midnight, Greg Laverriere, chairman of GUSA’s Finance and Appropriations Committee, celebrated the results in a press release.
“The results tonight will affect Georgetown students for decades to come,” he said. “Clubs and organizations on this campus are the big winners tonight.”
Colton Malkerson, vice chairman of the FinApp Committee, echoed Laverriere’s statements.
“It’s a tall order asking students to increase their own fees to benefit student life, but in this referendum the student body stepped up and did what was right,” he said. “The passage of this referendum puts even more responsibility on GUSA and expectations are high, but I’m confident we will prove ourselves and deliver.”
The Student Activity Fee Endowment (SAFE) reform referendum reached the number of votes required for it to be valid.
As of noon today, 2,002 votes were cast in the referendum with more than a day of voting left. Two-thousand votes were needed to validate the results.
Had the total number of votes failed to surpass 2,000 the referendum would automatically be rejected regardless of the percentage in support of the reform. The Election Commission is expected to release the results shortly after midnight Thursday.
In the meantime, make sure to let Vox know what you think by voting in our poll.
12:15 a.m. update: 741 votes have been cast as of 11:49 p.m., according to GUSA Election Commission member Adam Giansiracusa.
Original post: Voting begins tonight around midnight for the Student Activities Fee Endowment (SAFE) reform referendum.
The reforms passed their first obstacle when the Georgetown University Student Association Senate voted in favor of the referendum earlier this semester. In order for the changes to take place the referendum must be voted upon by the student population as a whole, with a minimum participation of 2,000 students. The referendum will automatically fail if it does not reach the required number of voters.
Voting is open until 12 a.m. on Friday.
After you vote, or abstain from voting, or get tired from trying to understand why so many acronyms are used at Georgetown, vote in our poll.
Who knows, maybe our poll can get more votes than the actual GUSA referendum?
As expected, the Georgetown University Student Association overwhelmingly approved Student Activities Fee Endowment reform on Sunday. The reform, which proposes an increased student activities fee, will face an online referendum from December 7 to December 9.
The reforms will be adopted if at least 2,000 students vote and a majority of voters support the bill. It’s unclear if the vote minimum will be difficult to reach; GUSA executive elections routinelysurpass 2,000 votes, but this year’s GUSA Senate elections only received 2,150 total votes.
If passed, SAFE reform will also allocate the entirety of the student activities fee to student activities. Currently, half of the fee is allocated to a student activities endowment.
After weeks of town hall meetings, the GUSA Senate’s Finance and Appropriations Committee unanimously passed Student Activities Fee Endowment reform legislation on Wednesday night. The GUSA Senate will vote on the SAFE reform bill on Sunday.
The proposed reform will increase the student activities fee to $62.50 per semester during the 2011-2012 academic year. During the 2012-2013 academic year, the fee will be raised to $75 per semester. After that, the fee will increase indefinitely at the standard rate of inflation.
Tonight from 8 to 9 p.m. in ICC 120, GUSA will host a town hall to discuss fee and endowment reform. Chow down on GUSA’s (i.e. your) dime, and get all the facts about those proposed changes!
The Georgetown University Student Association Senate took a break from SAFE reform on Sunday to take aim at a different scourge—undergraduate access to the McDonough School of Business’s Hariri building.
Senator Nathaniel Tisa (SFS ’14), with the co-sponsorship of the GUSA Senate’s Academic Affairs Committee, introduced a bill that encouraged open access to Hariri’s lounges and lobbies for the general undergraduate body.
Currently, only MSB students can access the building after 10 p.m. According to Tisa, the limited accessibility was meant to secure expensive equipment that business school students use, such as Bloomberg machines.
“It doesn’t make sense that the whole building is shut down,” he said.
Last night, the GUSA Financial and Appropriations Committee held its second town hall meeting to discuss the Student Activities Fee Endowment reform plan.
Attendees discussed the previously proposed reform plan, as well as a potential increase in the student activities fee. According to Greg Laverriere (COL ’12), FinApp Committee chairperson, Georgetown’s student activities fee is less than 75 percent of fees at peer institutions. The proposed increase could range from $5 to $100.
At Sunday’s Georgetown University Student Association Senate meeting, senators announced that another town hall meeting concerning Student Activities Fee and Endowment reform will be held this Wednesday.
Senator Greg Laverierre (COL ’12), chairperson of the FinApp committee, said that the turnout was “less than expected” at last week’s town hall for SAFE reform. Nonetheless, suggestions made by students at the meeting may have a large impact on the new legislation for the Student Activities fee.
On Sunday, the GUSA Senate voted to create budgets for the Student Life, Community-Building and Outreach, and Academic Affairs Committees to draw small amounts of money from without going to the Finance and Appropriations Committee.
Student Life and Academic Affairs recieved $250 each, while Community-Building and Outreach snagged $500.
The budgets are not set in stone, though; if a committee exceeds its budget, it will simply revert back to the old plan of approval of case-by-case, itemized appeals. The bill passed almost unanimously, with only one tongue-in-cheek “nay” vote.
Vox Populi is the staff blog of the Georgetown Voice, Georgetown University's weekly newsmagazine. Opinions expressed in posts are those of their author alone unless otherwise stated.
Student activities fees are moving on up. Yesterday, GUSA’s Student Activities Fee Endowment reform passed referendum with 1,703 votes in favor and 743 against.
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