OPINION & EDITORIAL
Segregated fees benefit campus
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by Letters to the Editor
Thursday, March 15, 2007
This letter is in response to Mike Hahn's recent opinion piece "Students Shouldn't be forced to pay segregated fees." (BH, 3/8) While I wholeheartedly disagree with his main point, a selective reading of the article actually yields some positive information about the segregated fee system. He notes correctly that segregated fees are allocated to student groups in a viewpoint neutral manner so long as they meet certain criteria. The net effect is the creation of a diverse and vibrant marketplace of ideas, as well as many services the University normally wouldn't provide. However, the article then goes on to criticize the system for "funding groups with very specific political agendas that many students find distasteful" as well as amounting to nothing more then a tax levied by ASM. While this is exactly what the system does, it is also exactly why the system is so commendable.
By pooling student money and distributing it via an impartial committee made up of students, we ensure that groups get funded not based on their popularity, but on their contribution to dialogue and outreach on campus. Charging membership dues or soliciting donations would prevent groups with alternative viewpoints from being heard, not to mention wasting valuable time and energy for all organizations.
True, most of the hundreds of organizations on campus do not receive much in the way of segregated fees, but this only because they aren't large enough to require them. For example, a checkers club (is there one?) may get nothing more than a few hundred dollars in travel and event grants. But they wouldn't need anymore, since the funds they use only benefit the students in the club. By contrast, larger groups such as MCSC, the LGBT center, and WISPIRG outreach to thousands of students each semester through educational and recreational events, conferences, and leadership trainings. It would hardly be fair to put the entire burden of paying for these far-reaching groups on the comparatively few students who run and lead them. Furthermore, by eliminating the need for groups to seek funding from outside organizations, our segregated fee system ensures that all student organizations are run for and by UW-Madison students.
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, the idea behind the segregated fee system is not that every group has to appeal to or acquiesce every student, but that there is a group out there for everyone. We fund cultural groups for students to celebrate their heritage, activist groups for students to make change on the issues they care about, and intramural sports for students to compete and get exercise, etc. Not to fund these because most UW students may never use a particular group, or because some students may be offended by them, is ridiculous. That would be akin to not funding GUTS because there are students who rarely need tutoring, or getting rid of UHS because it might offend Christian Scientists who are ideologically opposed to modern medicine.
Of course I am by no means arguing that the system is perfect. While in an ideal world the amount of money given to any group would be exactly proportional to the amount of work they do on campus, this is never exactly the case. However since all segregated fee money both comes from and is controlled by students, it is up to us to constantly provide input on how effectively the process is working. I therefore welcome Mr. Hahn's article as a chance to get more of a dialogue going on campus about these issues. Furthermore, I encourage all students to ensure such a dialogue actually makes a difference by making informed voting choices in this spring's ASM elections. Not doing so de-legitimizes the outstanding and unique funding system we have here at UW-Madison.
Adam Porton
porton@wisc.edu
UW Sophomore
Anonymous (March 15, 2007 @ 1:10pm):
The MCSC was granted close to 500,000 dollars this past year...no student group, no matter how large should be granted that type of funding; it's unnecessary.
Connie Coddington (March 15, 2007 @ 3:30pm):
As a graduate of the University of Wisconsin -- Madison I would like to comment on a portion of Adam Porton's letter to the editor in response to Mike Hahn's opinion piece "Students shouldn't be forced to pay segregated fees." (BH, 3/8)
I understand Porton's comment that it would be ridiculous not to fund particular groups because some students might never use them and therefore could be offended. The examples he uses are that of "not funding GUTS because there are students who rarely need tutoring, or getting rid of UHS because it might offend Christian Scientists who are ideologically opposed to modern medicine."
The Christian Science Church does not mandate the health care choices of its members. In fact, students of Christian Science, a biblically-based system of healing founded on the healing works of Christ Jesus, are free to utilize medical care should they choose to do so. However, as a lifelong student of Christian Science, I rely on it because I have found that it has been consistently effective in my life. My family and I have had healings of ear infections, croup, measles, chicken pox, flu, painful growths and lumps, colds, migraines, heart conditions, smoking and drinking. I'm grateful to live in a country where I can make such a choice.
Connie Coddington
Christian Science Committee on Publication for Wisconsin
Anonymous (March 31, 2007 @ 2:00am):
MCSC didn't receive $500,000 this year. Know what you're talking about before you write false information. I believe the MCSC budget is less than $400,000. Why don't you complain about the failed Text Book rental program that cost students well over $100,000 and isn't happening anymore because it failed? Waste o' $.
Anonymous (July 4, 2008 @ 11:04am):
MCSC's budget is aprox. 360,000.00 just so you all know the 411. Folks love to exaggerate don't they? It makes for better hysteria right.
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