Opinion: Letter
No Stipend Needed
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Although it is well intentioned, the proposed Student Services Finance Committee member stipend is inappropriate.
SSFC will always have problems attracting and retaining members, whether they receive financial compensation or not. This is the consequence of general apathy for activism on campus. This is demonstrated in the notoriously low participation rates in ASM elections — last October, voter turn out was 5.61 percent.
Because it is so modest, this stipend will be ineffectual at attracting and retaining qualified and diverse committee members. The proposed compensation would make little difference to students in financial difficulty, since a part-time job in the private sector pays significantly more than $4 per hour.
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A dramatic cost? What about those handfull of student orgs that recieve well over one hundered thousand dollars in allocated seg fees?
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What precendent? No other committee meets more than once a week in ASM. SSFC has like meetings from at least 6:30pm to Midnight every Monday and Thursday. No other committee does that, not even the entire ASM council meeting. Compensation is necessary for that kind of involvement. Altruism is a great idea, but not everyone is as fortunate to be able to dedicate 12 hours of their week for no pay and still afford to eat, survive, and pay for education. Last thing we need is SSFC to be filled with only people that are fortunate enough to have other sources of income (E.g. NOT A JOB) to support the above.
But nonetheless … let the nay sayers begin their barrage below.
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Chrissy, surely as an econ major you know that you get what you pay for.
DCM
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sounds like 8:33 has it right
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Why are people always using the argument all or nothing?
“If SSFC members receive a stipend, then all representatives of ASM should also.”
Not all representatives do anything close to the amount of work the SSFC does.
Why is common sense & compromise so lacking in how political decisions are made now-a-days?
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So you can survive on $40/week. Please, clue me in!
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Significant decrease to seg fees? Do the math. Seriously.
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def. Altruism: “Behavior by an animal that is not beneficial to or may be harmful to itself but that benefits others of its species”.
It ceases to be ‘altruism’, if you demand pay for your actions. Pay is a personal benefit. If you need to earn more money, cut back on non-essential activities and get a job.
Sounds like 8:33 has it wrong, both from a personal priority as well as a lexicology perspective….
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Well said.
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Perhaps money should be spent on SSFC Representative, but SSFC should have allowed Student Council (the true representation of the students) to decide to payments into SSFC’s budget. SSFC should not pay themselves it should be up to Council.
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Thats the point … SSFC is not about altruism either way.
One example is members getting paid … ther other example is fortunate students with other means of income deciding the direction of seg fees.
Now how is the point of view from only people that can afford to be on SSFC an all encompassing view … it isn’t.
Also, 2:24 Homo sapiens = animals. Just in case you didn’t know. All humans are animals as defined by your lexicology. Take some biology classes, its one of the major kingdoms.
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3:22—
SC has to approve SSFC’s budget.
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4:28 —- SC now has to vote 2/3rds to take the stipends out vs 2/3rds to put the stipends in had SSFC not voted for themselves.
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Chief Justice Grosskopf is requesting 50 dollar stipends for Associate Justices. hrm?