The Fee Review Committee voted Thursday to continue existing fees for which there were no requests to increase, and discussed its new videotaping system that will eliminate six traditional meetings.
The cap for fee increases this year is 6.5 percent.
This year, the committee will be voting on fee increase requests with a new ballot, in which the academic fees will be separated from non-academic fees.
“The Provost does not want any academic fees to compete with any non-academic fees,” Tom Stafford, co-chair and vice chancellor for student affairs, said.
Student Senate President and co-chair Greg Doucette, who did not attend the meeting because he was at the Board of Governors meeting in Chapel Hill, said Provost Larry Nielsen was frustrated last year because the committee considered the Educational & Technology Fee, the only existing academic fee, in the same way as non-academic fees.
Since the ETF is the only academic fee, Doucette said it will have no competition in the fee process.
“It feels like an earmark for ETF,” he said. “That’s been my concern since the beginning.”
According to Student Body President Jay Dawkins, the separation of academic and non-academic increase requests could mean ETF, which he said typically funds computing equipment for labs, will be increased more than the individual non-academic fees.
“The maximum increase was higher due to the size of the [Educational & Technology] Fee,” Dawkins, a senior in civil engineering, said. “If removed, non-academic fees have less leeway for an increase and the ETF fee is guaranteed an opportunity for a significant increase.”
After discussing the fees that will not increase next year, Stafford told the committee about the process for videotaping fee request presentations.
Stafford said he had concerns over an original plan that student leaders, such as Doucette presented, in which the committee would videotape its meetings and embed them on the referendum ballot, on which students can express their opinions on different requests.
According to Stafford, his original concerns in videotaping meetings were that there was no “reason to put University business that will be conducted by the committee” out for anyone to see on the Internet. But the new system alleviated those concerns, he said, and there are other benefits.
“It gives you the flexibility to do this at your convenience,” he said to the committee.
Any group requesting a fee increase will need to set up a time with the producers of WolfBytes and WolfTV, who are in charge of the videos.
They will tape the presentations, and place them on a student affairs Web site, according to Stafford. Only students, faculty and staff will have access to the site, which Stafford said will use only existing University staff and resources.
