The Wake

Students might not know it, but when Mom and Dad wrote that big tuition check for this semester, $307.96 of it went to student service fees.

Where does this money go and who decides who gets it? According to Minnesota Student Association president Tom Zearley, 90 percent of the money goes to what are considered administrative units. These include Boynton Health Services, Recreational Sports and The Minnesota Daily. Administrative units are essentially guaranteed consistent funding each year, Zearley says.

Where the other 10 percent of the cash will go is open for debate, although allocating the money is complicated. “The process is not one bit simple, but it safeguards against abuses,” Zearley says. Student groups who feel deserving of a share of the $22.1 million pot generated each semester by student service fees must file an application with the Student Activities Office by Jan. 26, 2005. In the application, prospective student groups request a certain amount and must give a detailed account of how the money will be spent.

After the applications are accepted, they are sent for recommendation to a student fees committee composed of nine undergraduate students and two administrators. Students who sit on the committee apply for the position at the beginning of the school year, according to Aaron Asmundson, advisor for the fees committee. His job is to train committee members and work with the student organizations applying for funding.

The fees committee decides which groups should get funding and the amount they should receive. They send their recommendations to an administrative fees committee. This committee includes four students, two selected by MSA and the other two appointed by Graduate and Professional Student Association. An administrative representative also sits on the committee.

Only the student representatives on both committees are able to vote, Zearley says. He added that after MSA and GAPSA select the representatives, the groups have no say in the process, because they are also student groups who are being considered for funding.

Once the administrative fees committee makes its final recommendations, the Board of Regents has the final say. The final recommendations made by the committees are rarely tinkered with, Zearley says. No groups recommended for funding by the student fees committee last year were denied funding. One group that was denied funding by the student fees committee, The Wake, was later recommended for funding by the administrative fees committee.

According to Asmundson, around 35 groups applied for funding last year and nine or 10 were denied. Asmundson says there has been a trend toward more groups applying ever since a 2000 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in a case involving the University of Wisconsin simplified the process. Even though no new student groups were approved for funding last year, Asmundson believes that the opportunity is there, if the group has a solid case for funding. He pointed to The Wake as an example of a group that received funding after the process became easier.

One student group that received funding last school year, the Friendship Association of Chinese Students and Scholars, was denied funding for this year. “We were certainly frustrated with the decision,” says Hiayan Jia, the group’s president. The student fees committee said a big reason they decided to cut their funding was because they were a “nationality group” and didn’t cater to the collective interests of the student body, Jia says.

She adds that groups similar to hers had little luck with the committee, such as Hmong Minnesota Student Association. The Minnesota International Student Association, a related group, was given significantly more money. The Friendship Association gets between $1,000 and $2,000 per semester from MISA, but it isn’t comparable to the $10,000 they received last year, Jia says.

Although it is too late for students to apply to become fee selectors for this year’s proceedings, students can still get involved. A public hearing will be held in early March where students can voice their opinions about who should get funding, Zearley says. He believes that students who aren’t actually members of the organization carry more weight with the committee because it shows that the organization reaches average students.