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	Senior Devin Most signs a thank you letter to UNM President David Schmidly in the SUB on Thursday. PIRG was circulating the letter after the administration rescinded its recommendation to cut the group and several others instead of raising student fees.

Senior Devin Most signs a thank you letter to UNM President David Schmidly in the SUB on Thursday. PIRG was circulating the letter after the administration rescinded its recommendation to cut the group and several others instead of raising student fees.

Regents weigh hike in student fees

Student fees look, once again, like they’re going to increase by $10.10 to a total of $456.91 next year in order to fund three organizations and a Queer Resource Center.

The groups and center were set to losing funding after Cheo Torres, vice president of Student Affairs, asked the Board of Regents not to increase student fees, a suggestion that conflicted with the Student Fee Review Board’s recommendation of a $10.10 increase in February.

Torres rescinded the recommendation in a memo addressed to Provost Suzanne Ortega on Thursday. President David Schmidly and Executive Vice President David Harris also signed the memo.

The Board of Regents will make the final decision about whether to raise student fees at its budget summit today.
Torres said he was against raising student fees because he thought it would be a University-wide practice to avoid fee increases in all UNM departments and programs. However, when he discovered that other groups like the libraries were asking for fee increases — and when students barraged him with e-mails and phone calls — he decided to withdraw his recommendation.

“I was under the impression that we were not going to have any new fees,” he said. “And also I’ve gotten a lot of student input — a lot of e-mails, a lot of calls — and I said, ‘I would like to revise my recommendations and honor the Student Fee Review Board.’”

Torres said he received between 40 and 50 e-mails from students who supported the groups.
GPSA President Lissa Knudsen, and chair of the SFRB, said in a statement that she is pleased the administration decided to stand behind the Board’s recommendation.

“We are extremely appreciative of the administration’s decision to honor the recommendations of the Student Fee Review Board. The collaborative effort put forth by ASUNM, GPSA and the SFRB was thorough, fair and professional,” she said. “The board was gravely concerned about raising fees in this economic climate. However, we agreed that these four programs would have a direct impact on student success and/or further the mission of the University.”

Also, representatives from the Queer Resource Center and Public Interest Research Group said they were reassured by the administration’s support. The SFRB allocated almost $85,000 to the QRC and almost $50,000 to PIRG.

“I will feel relieved tomorrow after the final vote goes through,” said David Griffith, QRC spokesman. “I’m very pleased … that the efforts this week have paid off.”

Breanna Hastings, PIRG spokeswoman, said the group asked students to call, e-mail and meet with administrators regarding the proposed cuts. The group also used Facebook to organize and cultivate support.
Support from ASUNM

The groups had backing from the undergraduate governing body. ASUNM Senate passed a resolution supporting the SFRB on Thursday.

The resolution, which passed 19-0-1, stated that the Senate understood the administration was attempting to keep costs low for students, but that the hours the SFRB put into their recommendation shouldn’t be ignored.
“We realize the impending tuition increase and its effect on our constituents, and we still see the SFRB’s recommendation as valid,” according to the resolution.

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Sen. Melissa Trent, a sponsor of the resolution, said she doesn’t understand what the purpose of the SFRB or the ASUNM senate is if the administration chooses to ignore them.

“They listened to students for hours and hours and hours,” Trent said of the SFRB. “They had so much on their plate that, if they are ignored, I don’t see what the point of that is. I don’t see what the point of the ASUNM is. I think it is important that we send a message that we support the students’ voice.”

The resolution doesn’t mention the specific programs on the chopping blocks — the Queer Resource Center, the Research Service Learning Program, the Public Interest Research Group and Community Learning and Public Service. Trent said the resolution is meant to support students’ voice and the SFRB.

“I would be here regardless of what specific programs were seeing funding increases or decreases,”
Trent said.
Even so, each organization stood before the Senate to give support to the resolution.
Griffith, QRC spokesman, told the story of how a few people and a powerful message can make a change.
“This is an idea that (student) Jeffrey Waldo had brought before the senate in November and a few months later there was potentially $84,000 on the table,” Griffith said. “I think that sends a really strong message to all students on this campus.”

But he cautioned that can only happen if the administration adheres to the rules.
“I feel that only works when the system works,” Griffith said. “If the administration is going to disregard the SFRB recommendations, we just go back to being a big school where everyone is invisible. We don’t have a voice and can’t effect change.”

The only senator who abstained from the vote was Travis Maestas, who serves on the SFRB.
He said that he was disappointed that the senate didn’t contact the SFRB to make the resolution a little stronger. He also said he didn’t want to create a conflict of interest but said he supported the heart of the resolution.
He also warned against ASUNM candidates using this issue as a political tactic to get elected.

Lazaro Cardenas, ASUNM presidential candidate, cosponsored the bill, and opposing candidate, David Conway, helped the senators draft the resolution.

“I just don’t want this to become a campaign tactic,” Maestas said. “I know sometimes campaigns can get a little ugly, and I don’t want this, the student fees, to get involved in all that.”

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