What Do You Think?
Tonight the ASM Shared Governance committee continued our discussion of the use of segregated fees in capital building projects. I'd like to thank NatUp for the extremely insightful presentation and thought-provoking conversation.
Many students do not have a comprehensive understanding of segregated fees or the effect increases due to capital building projects will have on the amount of money they pay every semester.
So...
What do you know and think about NatUp and other capital building projects?
Please add your comments and continue the discussion by clicking the comments link on the bottom right corner of this post. I encourage everyone to voice your opinions respectfully and limit discussion to seg fees relating to capital building projects.
Here are a few links for more information and to spur conversation:
http://www.natup2010.com/
http://badgerherald.com/oped/2010/02/01/natup_plan_too_short.php
http://badgerherald.com/news/2010/02/17/student_group_says_n.php
Official ballot language from SEC Chair Noah Pearce:
Natatorium Renovation/Expansion Project
The student organization Nat Up and the Division of Recreational Sports are initiating efforts to renovate and expand the Natatorium Recreation Facility, which was built in 1964. Previous student assessments and consultant reports have suggested the need to upgrade and enlarge campus recreation facilities to better meet demand, which has increased 50% since 2000-01. Student input has been and will continue to be vital to the planning and design process. The renovation and expansion, intended to be completed in the fall of 2014, may include:
• Cardio exercise space possibly up to seven times larger than current area
• Weight training space possibly up to three times larger than current area
• Renovation of the pool and aquatic area
• New locker rooms
• A multipurpose indoor turf field
• New basketball courts and indoor track
• Additional multipurpose rooms for group exercise and student organization use
• A “greener”, more efficient facility
• A fully accessible facility (ramps, elevators, restrooms, activity spaces and equipment)
This project will be funded by multiple sources:
Recreational Sports Program Revenue
• Debt service payments from 2011 – 2013 will be funded by Recreational Sports program revenue and will not impact student segregated fees.
Student Segregated Fees:
• In the Fall Semester of 2013, student segregated fees will increase by a maximum of $54.19 per semester specifically for the purpose of satisfying the debt repayment for the new facility.
• This amount will not increase further over the 30 year repayment period but is in addition to the segregated fee currently collected for Recreational Sports operational expenses. Any future increases to operational expenses must be approved by the Student Service Finance Committee through the annual budget process.
Segregated fee may be reduced depending on private donations as well as state and campus support.
I support the segregated fee increase to help fund the proposal:
YES ___NO ___
9 comments:
Well, I'm completely in favor of Nat up as long as the language on the ballot indicates directly the causation of capital building project approval --> seg fees increase by $XX.XX per semester.
I sent an open records request to Noah Pearce, the Chair of the Student Election, for the official language that is to be on the ballot this Spring. I will update here when I get a reply!
I'm generally in support of capital building projects on campus, especially when I believe they'll improve the campus environment and offer more services to students. That being said, with the recent past seg. fee increases for building projects, it's hard to justify another one so soon.
~Jeff R, shared gov.
I don't support this. You can't get everything you want all at one time without paying a high price. I think seg fees are too much already, so it would be best to wait until debt on another project expires and is taken out of the fees before we tackle this project.
Graduate students are already being asked to pay over $1,000 per year in segregated fees, which is a substantial burden for independent adults. The UW's grad student funding is already near the bottom of top-tier research universities, and being asked to pay more than $1,000 out of a $12,000-$14,000 annual stipend makes Wisconsin even less competitive.
The ballot language is also quite biased toward the NatUp folks. The fee increase should be listed much earlier in the question. It's also scary to me that we're being asked to approve a project that has not really been thought out. We should know exactly what is planned for the renovation.
With that being said, I have no doubt that NatUp and ASM will allow this question to be reconsidered until a few students vote yes in a paper election. Good thing I will have graduated before this fee comes due.
After the somewhat contentious discussion at the last two Shared Gov meetings, I believe a hard look needs to be taken at this proposal from both a design and use standpoint. Furthermore, I believe the entire process of raising segregated fees, from idea to vote, should be put under review. First, let me say that I am in no way against the idea of democratically levying recurring fees to pay for utilities used by the general student body. Though after rereading what I wrote below I certainly seem like it… The precedent we are setting in doing so and the method in which we have arrived at the piedmont of yet another insurmountable increase for many UW students concerns me. Regardless of whether or not we need a new Ikea-esque Swedish Luxury Spa on campus (review the "Concept" pictures at www.natup2010.com if you don't understand my snarky remark), a serious lack of meaningful data has been presented. The endless number of questions yet to be answered shall only briefly be labored here, but there existence to the readers of this post is likely obvious, and if not you should seek them. For instance, while the last decade has seen an increase in the numbers of ID card swipes at recreational facilities by 537,000, this data is not broken down into any subcategories. Who made the swipes? Which facilities were they at? Was there a time trend? What did users do once inside the facility? Are any of these swipes due to organized athletics? Why haven't these questions been answered, or perhaps even more importantly, why can't they be? At the Shared Governance meeting on Feb 25 many questions went completely unanswered, almost as if they were never asked by the Rec Sports Committee or members of NatUp and thus could not be answered. Asking such questions, all questions, even those that don't seem obviously important needs to happen. Then the answers to these questions need to be unbiasedly sought after, and once found and agreed upon by an impartial body (for not all answers are simply quantitative and not all bodies, especially those with a vested interested in the proposal, are impartial), presented clearly and fully to both ASM and the voting public. Continuing on such a misguided and uninformed series of segregated fee increases is a dangerous and wildly unpredictable course. Additionally, the proposed restructuring of the Natatorium seems more like the whimpering cries of a chauvinistic athlete than those of someone who has realistically assessed the needs of the student body. Honestly, do people really go to the gym to stare at Lake Mendota, bathe in the sustainability of an overpriced LEED certification, and consume protein-injected fake fruit drinks? Or do they go there to get hot and sweaty and burn a few of the calories that our fast paced lifestyle forces us to eat? Burning calories is going to happen regardless of the Feng shui we have implemented in our lobby. If we really want to step up as a body that represents the student interested we need to commit serious time to this issue. And while doing so we need to carefully ask ourselves why we arrived at this position in the first place. Is the entire process of segregated fee increases flawed? Should caps be put on the system? Are we not doing enough to lobby our state legislatures to pay for projects that benefit the entire university population (for instance, faculty can use the Rec sports facilities at well below the average cost of local gyms yet they don’t pay seg fees)? Continuing to simply sit by and simply agitatedly question the reasons we now stand at the foot of yet another mountain of future debt will do nothing. If it is the mood of this body to be discontent with the current way of things, we need to stand up as a single unit and take action. I beg of my fellow members to take more than just a passing glance at this issue and seriously invest your time. Remember we are the voice of the student body; we must act accordingly and we must fulfill our law given responsibility (Google “36.09 wi”, look at page 3, section 5).
It is quite clear that the recreational facilities are not keeping pace with demand. I realize this each time I head over to the serf or nat. However, introducing a five star recreational facility/resort may not be in the best interest of the student body as a whole. The idea of expanding recreational facilities is great, but some other real options should be explored. Also, I think the question of whether this new facility will actually change the current dynamic should be looked into further.
The Natup 2010 proponents are correct in claiming our campus' rec facilities are overused and outdated. Unfortunately, their proposal does little to address this problem because it completely ignores much needed improvements to the SERF, which is and will continue to be the facility most used by students. Corollary arguments were made against the new Union South (in which I was personally heavily involved), but at least Union South is in very close proximity to geographic heart of campus.
As alluded to by the previous commenter, the NATUP 2010 presenter at Shared Gov had absolutely zero information on any sort of analysis of rec sports usage. The fact that NATUP 2010 didn't even have a petition table at the Natatorium speaks volumes to usage reality.
On a related note, if there is such a shortage of recreational space on campus, then why is Rec Sports and campus administration allowing the Athletic Department to take over the Shell with (apparently) no compensation? Similarly, why isn't the Athletic Department contributing to proposed Natatorium renovations when they will continue to use the facility as a practice and performance venue?
Everyone who has posted there opinion here should consider joining the ASM Shared Governance Focus Group. We will be discussing segregated fees and capital building projects. If you're interested, please e-mail me at hanley2@wisc.edu. The focus group will meet a couple of times to discuss ideas for educating students and possible recommending a course of action to ASM Student Council. The meetings will be scheduled based on the availability of interested members.
Post a Comment