Students voted to pass a referendum in support of adding $1 to tuition to support the Iraqi Student Project in the spring 2008 Associated Students of Madison student elections.
Only 7.3 percent of the student population, 2,992 students in all, turned out to vote for candidates running for seats on Student Council, Student Services Finance Committee and the elected senior class leader positions. Students also had the opportunity to give their opinions on two referenda.
Students voted for the Iraqi Student Project referendum with 1,713 in approval and 994 in opposition of adding a dollar to student costs to offset the tuition of five Iraqi students brought to study at the University of Wisconsin.
“What this project is working to do is give those kids who would be going to university in their own country the opportunity to pursue their higher education ambitions in this country, at this university,” said Sam Finesurrey, a member of Campus Antiwar Network, the group that headed the initiative.
Because of ASM bylaws, the referendum could only be used to measure student support of the project. Finesurrey said he thinks the amount of support the students have shown is fantastic.
“We got 2,300 signatures to put this on the ballot, which is remarkable,” Finesurrey said. “The increase in vote has been really fantastic and I think it is somewhat due to people’s interest in this issue and interest in this project.”
Finesurrey said he sees this as an opportunity to improve the cultural diversity of the UW campus, which he said is poor.
The group plans to do more outreach work to gain additional support before taking the referendum to the Teacher’s Union. The referendum will then go to the Board of Regents, who must approve any change to tuition.
“We are going to do some outreach stuff and go around and try to garner support for this from other organizations,” Finesurrey said.
Students also approved the referendum to alter the ASM bylaws and remove the finance committee chair from serving on SSFC.
Oliver Delgado was voted 2008-09 senior class president with 430 votes, Ed Dunbar is the senior class vice president and Tim Fung was elected for both senior class treasurer and secretary.
Tony Nguyen, Kurt Gosselin and Adam Porton were elected to serve on SSFC. However, Tony Nguyen will not be taking the position as an SSFC member because of the time commitment, he said.
“I tried to resign my candidacy before the election, but [the Student Election Commission] told me that the time to withdraw my candidacy had passed,” Nguyen said. “It is just a matter of commitment. I will be very busy next year; I am going to be a house fellow as well, so I can’t commit eight hours a week to SSFC.”
Nguyen will be taking his elected seat as a College of Letters and Sciences representative instead because he wants to help improve the structure of course review in the College of Letters and Sciences and work on improving advising within the college.
Write-in candidates filled open representative seats left without candidates before the elections.
