The Graduate Student Government proposed to almost double student fees to save itself as its funding gets cut from the graduate school, which is facing a multimillion dollar deficit.
The fees would go up to $26 from $15 under a bill passed by the general assembly in January. At that meeting, students were initially upset by the increase. However, students understood the need for the increase after receiving news of the graduate school’s debt, especially with news of a recent lay-off of a senior staff member.
“We will face very hard financial times,” said E.L. “Doc” Hunter, GSG president, at last week’s meeting. “The new fee passed came just in the nick of time.”
The graduate school will cut all funding to the GSG by the 2007-08 school year, which has some members concerned about the future of the GSG. It currently receives two stipends and tuition remissions for the president and director of operations. Without any funding for those positions, the GSG will have to use its own fees or the organization could possibly fold.
“If the president’s pay got cut, GSG would inevitably slide,” said Jason Pontius, coordinator of Graduate Student Involvement, at the meeting. Pontius said he believes this increase is necessary and fair for the GSG to stay afloat. The bill will go to the Graduate Council for final approval, which will go in effect in two years.
The graduate school is facing a debt of several million dollars, which will take at least three years to pay off because of a mistake made in fellowship funding by former graduate school dean Dennis O’Connor. As a result, the graduate school will have to curtail its expenses, including cuts to the GSG and a decrease in the fellowship budget for next year by $200,000.
“The GSG has been doing some pretty good things and are becoming a stronger organization,” said Miles Lepping, a doctoral student in entomology. “So abandoning the GSG, although potentially necessary on [the graduate school’s] part, is something I’d like them to reconsider.”
Currently, half of the $15 in fees go to the Graduate Legal Aid Office. Under the proposed bill, $13 would go the Legal Aid Office for it to expand its services and the rest would go to the GSG.
“We feel that like the [Student Government Association], the student fee should cover it,” interim graduate school dean Ann Wylie said last week.
Also at the meeting, the GSG presented this semester’s budget. With the news that GSG will have to start saving money to be self-sustaining, assembly members began reducing its expenses.
Members began picking away at the budget, including reducing the vice presidents’ stipends from $1,500 to $1,250 each.
This funding cut, some students say, is an example that the graduate school is disconnected from the students.
“Graduate students actually never go there,” said Jon Lemich, GSG chief of staff. “The graduate school is sort of distant. It never touches the graduate students.”
Rachel Jablon, a doctoral student in comparative literature, couldn’t understand how such a big mistake could have occurred.
“It seems like such a crock to me that the graduate school is in this position,” Jablon said.
