UAF begins new student fee to promote sustainability
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If students are unsure exactly where money from the Student Sustainability Fee is heading, the people in charge of it also are working out the details.
“The interest of the students is making sure we have sustainability,” said Robert Holden, associate director of Auxiliary and Business Services. “It’s a large and broad topic.”
Holden is the faculty adviser for the student-led project. Last spring, students voted to implement the Student Initiative for Renewable Energy Now fee as a way to boost green practices at UAF.
SIREN is a 10-year program that will collect $20 from each of UAF’s 6,000 students each semester. Chancellor Brian Rogers has pledged to match those funds with money from the university’s existing budget, meaning the program could raise a combined $4.8 million during the next decade.
While no one is sure where the money will be allocated, Holden discussed a few ways the campus would like to become more environmentally friendly. The board hopes to find ways to conserve energy and reduce university impacts on landfills. It has started small by growing a small amount of fruits and vegetables on campus.
After deciding that the chancellor and a student representative would distribute the money, an advisory board was created, consisting of student members from different departments throughout UAF. Student body president Todd Vorisek said he felt that members of the university’s different departments were integral to the function of the board.
Fourteen positions, including one full-time university job, are included under the SIREN funding. Some of the positions include “plastics recycling representative,” “biking coordinator” and “residence life coordinator.”
The part-time jobs involve mainly oversight, representation and management and will pay $3,000. The last student assistant must be a graduate who will assist Sustainability Director Michael Golub and will be paid $15,000.
Golub “lives and breathes sustainability,” Vorisek said.
During the past four years, he has converted 11 vehicles from gas-powered to electric. He said the campus has specific challenges with recycling and using renewable energy.
“We’re unique,” Golub said. “We’re in Alaska.”
Vorisek is looking for any input students might have for the sustainability board. The great thing about college, he said, is that unconventional thought is appreciated.
“Bring it in — let’s take a look at it,” he said. “I don’t care how radical it is.”
Contact News-Miner intern Reba Lean at 459-7572.
Additionally, anybody who's ticked off about the money being allocated w/o a specific plan should contact the student government themselves, find out what committee is making the decisions and make sure they approve of them. Just like every other policy that effects people in the real world, if you're not involved in the decisions being made that effect you (and decisions are going to be made that effect you) you're simply subject to them.
I hope this money is used in a positive way, which moves the university forward and maybe in the long run even lowers some operating costs.
I sure everyone cares! Even the UAF employees will be more than happy to donate!
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Looks to me the students are being forced to spread their borrowed money around according to the gospel of Obama.
http://lorien.ncl.ac.uk/ming/Dept/Fun/jokes/college.htm
If it doesn't produce any positive results then observant UAF students might realize after paying the fee for a couple of years that they have indeed been suckered and are paying into a slush fund controlled by a few junior bureaucrats, to no real benefit to the fee payers. Mixing good intentions and public funds and seeing no real benefits, except happier bureaucrats, might turn a young person into a fiscal conservative before they join the rest of us taxpaying voters.
Oh no! I just realized the other scenario. It could backfire and create a herd of future bureaucrats, enamored of the power.
Yeah, more expenses.
In principle, I am glad to see the students wanting to do something for the environment. In practice -- there is no excuse for charging the fee BEFORE we know what it's going to be spent on.
If ya want some sustainability, quit lobbing fees at your students.
To UAF students that voted for this: If you have to pay attention to the local politicians (or any for that matter) do the opposite of what they do, please do not copy them.
As far as UAF goes, I avoid going there. They are not online friendly, like the school I went to. The university I went to is a normal university that has a very comprehensive online program. UAF is very lacking in online offerings. For my Masters I am going to an online university that is accredited, much easier for people who have to work fulltime.
It seems like a statewide past time to criticize the university and how much it costs. By no means is the UA system perfect, it has tons of flaws and waste. But I really think so many people bash it without knowing the realities of costs in different places. And I think all universities have some do-nothings and some ridiculous fees.
While it certainly is a personal choice when picking your University, I do want to correct your statement that ALL students who live off campus and take classes at TVC are charged these astronomical fees. If you are active duty military (or civilian) for that matter, and you want to attend classes on Ft. Wainwright, almost all of these fees are waived.
You didn't read my post. Maybe you should go to UAF and learn how to read because I don't go there and I never will. You like giving away your money for stupid stuff be my guest.
Spaceman,
Good for them, the UAF is so greedy that they charge those students who live off campus and attend TVC fees for UAF students. Actually my $4,500 and many other military members TA goes quite a ways without UAF. I get free books, no parking fees, no other stupid fees.
Ahh well, sometimes you get exactly what you want/deserve. If the majority of UAF students want to put their money towards something with a cool sounding word, but with no clue as to what, where, or how -- more power to them.
Sustainability funds will be needed to sustain the fund and its managers. UAF byline should read:
"Proudly Training our Future Government Bureaucrats"
Student Atheletic/Campus Rec. fee..$24
General Technology fee..$15
Material fee..$60
Student Government fee..$35
Student Sustainability fee.. $20
UA Network Charge..$9
parking
Total: $163.00 (over tuition) for items never used by most professional development students taking ONE class!...and for an adjunct teacher to boot!!
Meanwhile, UAF has literally hundreds of faculty and paid grad students doing nothing...not teaching, not conducting research..and on top of all that, many of the lead persons in the various departments are making in the mid-six digit salaries!
It is high time our "state" university do a major contraction. It may be the single largest public drain for little or no public good. I have four kids, and not one has ever been encouraged to attend a UA school!
Signed: BA and MA UA former student