As students fill out election ballots and select their
desired candidates for next year’s A.S. Council representatives this week, they
will find surveys asking for their opinions on two very different topics:
residential security officers and student activity fees. Students will be asked
to answer questions about how the presence of RSOs affects campus life, as well
as for their opinions on how to best utilize the funds from a probable
student-run referendum in the near future.
The results of the survey — provided that a large enough
quota of students give their responses — will indicate to next year’s A.S.
representatives the student body’s view of RSOs and the likely necessity of
raising the quarterly student activity fees that are used to sponsor UCSD
events such as the Sun God Festival, A.S. President Marco Murillo said.
The two discussion topics, proposed by Murillo and approved
by the A.S. Council, reflect the desire of UCSD’s student government to gauge
opinions about RSO-student interaction and the likelihood of rising student
activity fees in reaction to recent concerns surrounding both these issues,
A.S. Elections Manager Tanya Piyaratanaphipat said.
The questions concerning RSO interaction with on-campus
residents are meant to identify key problems students perceive about the
presence and actions taken by RSOs on campus. Though the administration altered
parts of the RSO program after a report that was released over a year ago found
that students were dissatisfied with officers still “patrolling” students rather
than focusing on student safety, Murillo said.
“Our question about a future referendum will help us gauge
student opinion about how much students would be willing to give up to increase
the funding available for campus events such as Bear Gardens,” Piyaratanaphipat
said.
The survey questions focusing on how much students would be
willing to increase their quarterly activity fees ask which events they feel
the council should prioritize with the resulting funding. Students can select
events such as Sun God or the A.S. Pancake Breakfast, depending on which
activity they are most interested in.
Students already pay an activity fee of $28 per quarter, and
the council uses $21 of this money to fund these events in addition to
student-run organizations. But the A.S. Council has seen an increase in
requests from student organizations every quarter this year — far outstripping
last year’s requests — which has led to persistent questions about the
availability of funds for both events and organizations.
The overwhelming increase in funding requests occurred as a
result of a switch from paper forms to online forms, streamlining the process
and making it easier for organizations to send in their requests to the A.S.
Finance Committee for review.
Between increased student organizations’ requests and campus
events such as the Sun God Festival that become more expensive each year, it is
extremely likely that a student-run referendum will have to take place in the
future asking students to pay a greater activity fee per quarter, according to
Murillo.
“Through the survey question about a possible referendum as
well as other avenues, A.S. Council is exploring the possibility of a
referendum to maintain and hopefully continue to expand campus events such as
Sun God,” Murillo said.
A task force, formed at the beginning of the school year to
explore multiple aspects of the funding problem, will convene after the results
of the survey are analyzed, and make a recommendation to the A.S. Council
regarding student interest in an activity-fee referendum.
The information gleaned from the two survey questions will
help the council collaborate with administrators to work toward any necessary
changes in both the RSO program and event and organization funding.
“Once we have gauged student opinion, we can take the
student input from the survey and hopefully use it to demonstrate to the
administration what students truly care about,” Murillo said.
