Student organizations and governing bodies are speaking out against an administrative recommendation that prohibits student fees from increasing this year.
Eliseo “Cheo” Torres, vice president of student affairs, suggested that all new-money recommendations from the Student Fee Review Board be ignored to keep student fees at their current level. If UNM President David Schmidly adopts the recommendation, which avoids a $10 student fee increase to $447.28, several organizations will go unfunded.
The organizations include the Public Interest Research Group, Community Learning and Public Service and the Research Service Learning Program. Torres also recommended that the Queer Resource Center — another new-money recommendation — go without start-up funding this year.
So, representatives from ASUNM, GPSA, the Queer Resource Center and New Mexico Public Interest Research Group are hosting a joint press conference today decrying the recommended cuts. In a press release released by PIRG on Friday night, representatives from the organization said the fee increase is justified and that the administration is overstepping its bounds by ignoring the SFRB’s recommendations.
“Student activities and programs are a vital part of the college experience. It’s in this spirit that students should have control over their fees and where the money is allocated. UNM created the SFRB to do just that,” according to the press release. “The SFRB spent over 100 hours reading and reviewing SFRB applicants’ proposals, holding open and recorded town halls, deliberating and making recommendations to best represent what students want to see from their campus with the money they pay to attend. All the work that went into making their decisions was to best represent the students.”
Torres was not available for comment.
The Student Fee Review Board recommended the increase in early February. In total, the three groups and the center are projected to receive almost $200,000 in student fees.
*Joint press conference on behalf of student government, several organizations including the QRC
Today
11 to 11:30 a.m.
Smith Plaza*
