In just over a week, the years-long construction project to upgrade UW’s Union South will be completed. The new Union South’s construction was funded by private donors, UW students’ segregated fees and the Union’s revenues, totaling $94.8 million in cost. Boasting facilities such as climbing walls and bowling lanes, the new Union South promises to be ‘larger and better,’ perhaps for lack of better words to describe it.
For some students, this will be a welcome addition to facilities on campus, especially to sophomores and freshmen who have never had the chance to experience the old Union South. The current Memorial Union, after all, despite its historic significance and elegance, does not offer much activities or dining options for students (think overpriced sandwiches). The new Union South, offering many more dining options and facilities for recreational activities, will hopefully be a lot more attractive as a place for students to spend time and ‘hang out’.
Others, on the other hand, might frown upon the usage of their segregated fees for such a large-scale project. After all, the Union South construction, a student-initiated project, was approved by only a small fraction of students who bothered to vote at all. In fact, the project had to go through multiple votes to obtain approval after the first two votes failed. Only the third vote passed, when a vote on paper was taken instead of an online vote.
Even then, the vote that got the project going was only decided by 2571 voters, of which 1671 voted yes, according to the ASM. This is barely 7 percent of the student population, nothing close to being called a democratic vote. Indeed, this is an embarassing fact about UW students – most do not care at all about how things are being run, even when they directly concern money they pay. Just a few days ago, the ASM elections, which were taken online, recorded a historic high for voter participation: 14.7 percent.
It should indeed be alarming that a mere fraction of students, less than 7 percent, decided how millions of dollars of student money would be used. While ASM has subsequently enacted a rule that projects funded by students should obtain at least a 15 percent voter turnout, the Union South project had already been approved and continues to affect both current and future students of UW-Madison – those segregated fees you are paying right now are being used to fund a project that was approved years ago.
Of course, the only solution to this is obvious, the same old tired attempt to encourage students to vote. It is your own money, after all; what’s the harm of spending a few minutes to voice your opinion and make sure your money is used the way you want it to be?
Many arguments have been made, and can be made, though, against voting. For instance, reading the generic, self-promoting profiles of ASM candidates in last week’s elections did not help much to decide who to vote for. In the end, it can be said that whoever is chosen does not make much of a difference to students anyway – at least not voters. Most probably, it will affect students in the future, after the voters have graduated.
Still, it undeniably doesn’t take that much effort to vote, especially considering that most of the time the process is conducted entirely online. While it is arguably better to not vote than to vote based on which candidate is the most attractive-looking, other matters are easier to decide on. In addition, like the Union construction, they can be more large-scale and require more consideration than the Union went through.
Alternatively, students can just sit back and not care. After all, as statistics have shown, it’s only natural to do so. And if a few hundred dollars of your money are being used against your will, you can always blame those students before you, just like students who go to UW in a few years will blame you. It’s the cycle of life. Meanwhile, enjoy the new Union South that was built with your money – I think it will be pretty awesome.
Albert Budhipramono ([email protected]) is a freshman majoring in biology.
