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First appeared Jan. 31, 2002
Student Government’s ad hoc fees committee took the first steps toward increasing students’ say on setting the fees and possibly reducing them with a five-question survey done in conjunction with the student government elections that took place last semester.
The survey results were then presented to the University of Maine System Board of Trustees at its meeting in Orono during winter break.
GSS Sen. Fred Nehring, a third-year spatial information science and engineering major, spoke to the board on the recent drop in residential heating and electric costs, concluding from those figures that the university’s costs should have also dropped.
“Clearly, by these indications, and others, the costs of energy are going down and bring into question the necessity of an energy surcharge fee,” Nehring said in his speech.
He also posed the question of where the money from the fee is going and raised the issue of energy conservation.
“The energy fee, in fact, may give students the feeling that they have paid for the right to ignore conservation efforts,” Nehring said.
Nehring addressed the full board, but his words were directed to the Student Affairs Committee. He gave his speech after a presentation by the SAC.
“I was right on the heels of a presentation by the committee,” Nehring said. “It was an internal review and report – are we keeping education affordable? Answer? Yes, thank you very much.”
“They weren’t especially pleased [with my report],” Nehring said. “They had some rebuttal remarks. They said students do have input, after all that’s why I was there.”
Nehring disagrees.
“It’s tokenism,” he said. “One vote on BOT – that’s not student involvement.”
John Martin is the University of Maine’s only student representative on BOT.
The fees committee had their first meeting of the semester last week, during which they decided on further steps to take toward making progress on student fees.
They created a subcommittee to do some “grassroots” work. The subcommittee’s goal will be to come up with ways to get the students involved, said GSS Sen. Joe Kilch, a senior mathematics major.
“I would really like when we move forward to be going down to the lower levels and talking with our constituents,” Kilch said.
The committee members would like to have more students join. There are four members on the committee: Aaron Sterling, the spokesperson; Nehring; Joe Kilch, Jenny Londot and George Pullen.
“[People who] aren’t necessarily involved in Student Government voices aren’t necessarily heard,” said Sterling, a third-year public administration major. “We’re open to any student who wants to participate.”
The fees committee also explored their options with a class action law suit against BOT with Ted Curtis of Legal Services, but the committee thought their efforts would be better spent elsewhere, according to Nehring, who met with Curtis on Monday.
Another plan of action is to go to the legislature for support. Sterling plans to talk with Jonathan Thomas, Orono’s state representative, to gain his support and to see if he can bring more legislators into the students’ way of thinking.
Another possible action they are contemplating is talking with the gubernatorial candidates and supporting the candidate who would be in favor of putting more students, alumni and faculty on the Board of Trustees.
A “letter home” campaign was also suggested to inform parents of the fees they are paying for their children’s education.
Nehring hopes to be able to change the energy fee.
“I’d be a fool if I said ‘well no I don’t think we can change anything,’” Nehring said.
But change will not be swift.
“I do not have any expectation that fees will come down any time soon,” he said. “Whatever successes that we have in reducing fees will come only after a long campaign.”
The most important thing he hopes to accomplish from the fees committee is student empowerment.
“That’s the basic goal,” Nehring said. “Students in general come from an environment at home where mom and dad make all the rules. Then they come here and there are freedoms, but their political freedom is limited. If the university wants to put out [people who are] useful to society, they shouldn’t deprive students of the opportunity to get involved. The message is basically ‘you abide by our rules,’ which is not what we want.”
