Imagine you were playing a drinking game last week during the Student Council meeting. Let's say you had to take a shot every time someone mentioned bullying or intimidation. By the end of the night, I bet you would've been drunk enough to get the point. Unfortunately, I was sober, so I missed it entirely.
The main topic of debate at Wednesday's meeting was the proposed Campus Services Fund. Yet accusations of bullying and intimidation were thrown around by a lot of speakers. I didn't know funding essential services could scare so many students. If that's the case, CSF would've been my best friend in middle school.
Put simply, CSF is meant to act as an alternative funding stream to the General Student Services Fund that currently is responsible for allocating student segregated fees to various registered student organizations every year. Its purpose is to make sure critical services are present on campus regardless of student organizations.
What are these critical services? Tutoring, legal advice and sexual assault assistance, for starters. But potentially, CSF could fund any number of things. It all depends on what the campus deems critical.
Purely in terms of policy, CSF is sound. Not scary. Not threatening. Not intimidating, but sound.
Under the rules of CSF, each branch of student government would weigh in on the value of a proposed service, including Student Council. Right now, Council arguably has no tangible responsibilities. CSF would give it some much-needed direction.
If student government jointly decides a service needs to be provided on campus, a Procurement Board would be formed to choose from three potential funding methods. Either ASM could provide the service, student organizations could enter a bidding process to provide the service or it could be provided by an outside group contracted through the university.
From there, the funding method would undergo reevaluation three years later and every two years after that. ASM would then decide if the service is still critical to students and if the current funding method is the best available option. Tedious yearly reports and opportunity for human error would be eliminated.
Spectators and members alike are worried that Student Council doesn't have the capacity to recognize what services are critical to campus. They feel like CSF would crush some romantic ideal of the grassroots campaigns that initially begin a GSSF group. However, CSF overcomes this by providing an avenue for anyone on campus to introduce a service idea if they gather enough signatures.
So, you can see why I'm not willing to buy into the growing theory that SSFC Chair Matt Manes and other members of ASM are strong-arming the student body through CSF. But I'll give the opposition a freebie and follow up with this: Even if it is too scary to speak to the big bad bullies of ASM, does that mean the CSF is a bad policy to adopt? If you're still wondering, the answer is no.
Here's the thing, politics and policy rarely make for good partners. Just because a hundred students fill a room in dissent and snap their fingers doesn't mean the policy under fire is a bad one. Actually, in the case of CSF, it doesn't even mean the students understand what they're fighting against.
For ASM, outreach, transparency and CSF are three completely separate topics. They should be treated as such. Yes, members of Student Council could use a little work connecting with their constituents and shady backroom intimidation needs to end. But ASM members should realize their constituents are the entire student body, not just groups with a monopoly on funding or students pushing back against ASM ""elites.""
In the end, CSF is more practical than GSSF. All politics aside, it's simply better policy. Plus, it won't infringe on the way current GSSF groups operate. There's no downside to guaranteeing funding for critical campus services.
In reality, quite a few people opposed to CSF are scared that if it were to pass, it would eventually come at the expense of current GSSF groups' funding. There's another group that dislikes the way CSF has been introduced. Neither is concerned with the policy itself.
Ultimately with CSF, critical services would be provided for without the threat of human error. A regular Nelson Muntz if I've ever seen one.
Last week, the Student Council meeting ended before members could cast a vote on CSF due to a four-hour-long open forum. Therefore, it will automatically be referred to the next Student Council meeting Wednesday, Dec. 1 for further debate. Thanksgiving break should be enough time for ASM members to take a long, hard look at this proposal for what it truly is. Otherwise, I hope they provide the alcohol at Council meetings from now on.
Dan Tollefson is a senior majoring in English. Please send all feedback to opinion@dailycardinal.com.
