Student Activity Fee raised

Student Government Board passed a resolution on Thursday to increase the Student Activities… Student Government Board passed a resolution on Thursday to increase the Student Activities Fee for the fall and spring terms by 33 percent.

Pending approval by Vice Provost Jack Daniel and the University’s board of trustees, the amount paid by all School of Arts and Sciences undergraduates will increase from $60 a term for full-time students and $18 a term for part-time students, to $80 and $24 per term, respectively.

Despite the resolution’s ability to pass with a simple majority on the board and its support from a greater part of the audience, it failed to win universal approval.

“I’m very against the [SAF] increase,” said Jamil Thomas, of the SGB Allocations Committee. “I think that by increasing the [SAF], it’s giving the students more of a responsibility that the administration needs to handle.”

Thomas said the University should play a larger role in the direct funding of organizations such as club sports and the African Drum Ensemble.

“I think it needs to stop here,” she added. “There needs to be some sort of intervention with the administration.”

SGB President Brian Kelly, who has repeatedly championed increasing the SAF, responded to Thomas’ suggestion.

“If we put more of [the cost of] student activities elsewhere throughout the University, it’s going to come from [the students] anyway,” he said.

On two occasions, Board member Todd Brandon Morris criticized the amount of investigation behind the resolution.

“While I do believe there is a need for the Student Activities Fee to be increased,” he said, “I believe that before we go increasing it by 33 percent, more research needs to be completed.”

Morris also pointed out that, although the amount of money available would increase with the resolution, the different limits and restrictions on how much money can be given to any particular group might not change.

“Club sports love it and I know why [they] should, but there is nothing saying that [they] are going to get more money,” he said.

Morris proposed an amendment to the resolution to include an increase in the summer SAF.

“If we’re going to do this, we should do it right,” he said. “We did all the research that we say we did, and we didn’t even address how much we’re going to increase in the summer.”

Morris’ amendment did not pass.

On the other end of the spectrum, several student leaders attended the meeting to let the board know they felt an increase was due.

“Our equipment is outdated,” said Allison Rowland, the station manager of WPTS FM. “It’s like we’re teaching computer science majors on typewriters.”

Kurt Lansberry, the president of the Pittsburgh Cadet Group, watched the board overturn an allocations recommendation of zero dollars, in favor of giving his organization close to $1,000. He then supported the increase from a different angle.

“A lot of campuses, all you hear about are alcohol or drugs,” Lansberry said. “I think that this university does a good job of showing that you don’t necessarily need to do that to have a good time. And, so, I am all for an increase.”

Opponents to the resolution, however, pointed to the fact that, although there will be an ensuing increase in funds, there will not necessarily be an increase in the amount available for SGB to allocate to student organizations.

Currently, SGB controls only 49 percent of all money brought in through the SAF. President Kelly said the Board opted to reform the percentages on a separate resolution from the general increase.