If passed by the Student Senate and UW System Board of Regents, UW-Eau Claire will be enacting a new Blugold Commitment, which will give students the power to decide which academic programs they would like to fund with their differential tuition.
Student Senate Chief Adam Sorelle said the Commitment would raise differential tuition from $80 per semester to $750 after a four year phase-in, as well as incorporate student opinions to the allocation process.
Sorelle said if the new process is enacted, proposals for tuition money submitted by faculty would first go to the appropriate dean where it would receive a ranking.
The dean would then pass the proposal to the provost’s office where it would be organized into one of six categories: research, immersion, internships, capstones, learning and teaching or innovative projects.
After the office reviews it for integrity, the proposal would be given to the corresponding student majority committee, each consisting of three students and two faculty or administrative members, added Sorelle. The committees would then rank the proposals based on estimated effectiveness and appeal.
The proposal would then be taken to an analysis committee consisting of six provost staff and six students who would review past rankings and determine how much money to allocate to each proposal.
The last step in the process would involve the Student Senate, where they review all proposals expected to receive tuition money, Sorelle said.
UW-Eau Claire’s student body president Michael Umhoefer said one of the student positions would be reserved for a Student Senate member and the other two positions would remain open for applicants.
“Those students would be interviewed by the student body president and vice president as well as approved by Student Senate,” Umhoefer said.
Umhoefer detailed how the current distribution of funds is quite different from the proposed process.
In the present system, the deans on campus decide which proposals will receive differential funding based on how successful they were in the past and how necessary the program is.
Umhoefer added the new Blugold Commitment would be comparable to the Madison Initiative for Undergraduates, which the Regents approved last summer.
“With the Madison Initiative for Undergraduates, we have a similar setup,” said Kurt Gosselin, Student Services Finance Committee legal counsel.
As part of the Madison Initiative, the Student Oversight Committee comprised of faculty, staff and students works collectively to evaluate proposals and determine funding.
The differential tuition, currently an additional $250 per year at UW, is mostly used to provide assistance to low-income families and to hire additional faculty.
According to Sorelle, yesterday was the final chance for students to fill out feedback surveys regarding the Blugold Commitment.
On Monday, the Student Senate will make final changes to the proposal using student surveys, and Sorelle estimated the UW System Board of Regents will make the final decision sometime in February.
