[media-credit name=’PATRICK STATZ-BOYER/Herald photo’ align=’alignnone’ width=’648′][/media-credit]Student leaders have begun negotiations with the University of Wisconsin administration to make sure no student organizations go homeless this year.
According to UW System policy as dictated by the Board of Regents, student organizations cannot receive segregated-fee funding for off-campus rent from the Associated Students of Madison.
However, after a semester-long budget dispute in spring 2006 between ASM and the UW administration, Chancellor John Wiley agreed to grant a one-time exemption to allow six student organizations to receive funding for off-campus rent.
That exemption has since run out, however, leaving those student organizations affected without a source of funding for off-campus rent in the 2007-08 academic year.
Last December, the Student Services Finance Committee took the first step in challenging the system policy by returning segregated-fee funding for off-campus rent to the organizations’ budgets. SSFC hopes the Board of Regents will overturn the controversial policy and approve the budgets with funding for off-campus rent intact.
According to ASM chair Dylan Rath, the council will approve its budgets at the Jan. 31 meeting. The final budgets will then be presented to the chancellor in early March, and will either be approved or adjusted before being forwarded to the Board of Regents by April 1 for final review.
Collegians for a Constructive Tomorrow, which currently rents off-campus, will be a part of the fight to include funding for off-campus rent in the budgets.
Treasurer Mike Dattner said if the chancellor removes the funding from the budgets, students will have the opportunity to take action.
“Once ASM passes it, [Wiley] will submit the budget without the rent, then we have until April to submit our own budgets,” Dattner said. “We have to go through a process to submit another budget to the regents.”
In an e-mail to The Badger Herald, Rath said the two budgets would be submitted together to the regents with a memo explaining the discrepancy.
But an understanding of the issue’s importance at the regents’ level may be lacking, according to Interim Dean of Students Lori Berquam.
“I encourage the students to use their voice — until the regents know this is impacting students, they might just see it as a simple 'Yes’ or 'No,'” she said.
A committee of students — dubbed the “Student Rights Coalition” — formed last December to support funding off-campus rent with segregated fees and to ensure students’ involvement in the decision-making process.
The committee is comprised of various student organization representatives and collectively delivered more than 1,400 signatures of support to ASM’s final meeting before winter break.
SRC representative Rachel Butler said the organization would not rest until the solutions are found and the student voice is heard.
According to UW Communications, the UW administration had a meeting before break with the SRC to identify short-term goals, including looking for temporary space in the union.
Berquam said the six affected groups were asked to submit their current rented square footage as well as what they deemed “space critical” in order to maintain operations. She identified the 11-story Student Activity Center, slated to open in 2008, as a long-term solution.
Whatever the solution may be, SRC representative Katrina Flores said it must utilize shared governance.
“I would like to see more communication when decisions are made,” she said. “I want to see that students aren’t homeless — I hope there is a solution that is collaboratively come to,” she said. “Students need to be involved; if they had been more collaborative, it wouldn’t have been such a big blowup.”
Berquam said UW also must arrive at a decision on which groups are granted on-campus space in the first place with shared governance in mind.
Finding a temporary solution is acceptable to the SRC if administration shows a dedication to further negotiations.
“I think, honestly, there will be a temporary solution,” Flores said. “And that’s OK, as long as there is a commitment to make more long-term solutions.”