The University Fee Advisory Committee will agree to change its approach to meetings by allowing groups to videotape its proposals for fee increases after initially opposing a similar idea, according to Tom Stafford, vice chancellor for student affairs.
“We will require the people presenting an increase in their fee to have that presentation videotaped,” he said.
The group that produces WolfBytes and Wolf TV will produce the videos, and the fee referendum ballot will have links to these videos for students and committee members to view, Stafford said.
The videos will also be available as video podcasts on iTunes, and Student Affairs will set up a list serve for committee members to send presenters questions about their proposals.
According to Student Senate President Greg Doucette, a senior in computer science, the new video system will allow more student involvement.
“A Web site [will be] set up for the entire fee review process where all the requests will be put together and all the documents for the requests will be put up on that site,” he said.
Stafford had concerns about Doucette’s initial idea to videotape and embed videos of the committee meetings, but he said this system of taping the presentations had addressed his concerns.
Instead of placing the videos on a YouTube-like server, the videos will be available through a University site that requires a student or faculty ID, he said.
“We’ll be using existing University staff and resources to do this,” Stafford said.
Stafford said he did not think many students would take advantage of the videos, but Student Body President Jay Dawkins said the site’s format could make it easier for students to do so.
“[If they] have an opportunity to watch a five to 10 minute video instead of a three-hour video [of a meeting], I think the viewership will go up,” Dawkins said.
But since the process is so different from the previous one, it is difficult to judge what effects it could have, Stafford said.
“We’ll have to wait and see,” he said. “It’s a completely new procedure. We’ll have to see how well it works.”
This process of videotaping presentations and allowing committee members to view them online will eliminate six normal fee committee meetings, Doucette said, so the committee will only meet tomorrow and for a final meeting Oct. 2 to vote on recommendations to send to the Chancellor.
According to Dawkins, the change in process will allow student voices to be heard more easily.
“The main difference won’t be in the meetings, but in the feedback that students give,” he said. “The more information we can put in student’s hands, the better our feedback is going to be.”
Doucette said this will create a level playing field for everyone who can participate in the fee review process.
“All the regular students that might not have input in the process in any other way have the exact same access as the members of the commmittee,” he said.
The only downside to this scenario is that, instead of reacting in a meeting, any responses to questions before the final meeting will have to be in written form through e-mails, Doucette said.
