ASUNM passed a resolution March 30 that proposed eliminating one graduate student position and adding three undergraduate student positions to the Student Fee Review Board.
The resolution backs a Student Fee Review Task Force recommendation that contends changing the ratio of the SFRB would make it proportional to the student population. The recommendation would change the number of SFRB members from seven to nine. Seven would represent ASUNM and two would represent GPSA.
“It’s purely to create more equitable representation for undergraduates on the SFRB,” said ASUNM Sen. Heidi Overton, who introduced the measure.
Last summer, Overton said, the SFRB Task Force examined the board’s process and UNM policy 1310, the Student Fee Review Board Policy, and came up with recommendations, which are in the public comment phase.
“One of the things they found was that the undergraduates contribute more money, and that is not in representation of the board,” Overton said.
To change the board’s makeup, President Schmidly and the Board of Regents would have to approve it.
However, GPSA President-elect Katie Richardson said the task force’s recommendation to change the ratio of the board is detrimental to students, because graduates bring a unique, more experienced perspective to the board, and many graduate students teach undergraduate classes.
“Even as the board stands now, graduates need at least one undergrad to agree for any proposal that we make; the undergrads already have a majority,” Richardson said. “I think it’s always about working together as students, and everything we have in common, but I think losing graduate representation is not what is best for this campus.”
Richardson said graduates historically try to give more support to the resource centers than undergraduates, and those centers impact all students on campus.
“I’m concerned that if we lose graduates on the board, we will see a loss of funding to those groups,” she said.
Overton said a past ASUNM president created the board so students could have a say in how fees were spent.
“And over time, it drifted away from the representation of students at the University,” Overton said.
Before the vote, some ASUNM senators thought supporting the task force’s recommendation might complicate future work with GPSA. In the end, every ASUNM senator voted in favor of the recommendation, except one, who abstained.
Sen. Adrian Cortinas said ASUNM should focus on undergraduates’ needs. He said correcting the
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misrepresentation of undergraduates on the SFRB is crucial.
“We’re not against graduate students,” Cortinas said. “We put up $7 million as opposed to their $2 million. Just because we want to work with them doesn’t mean we need to do everything they say. Think undergraduates first, and then think GPSA next.”
