Committee to reevaluate $165 in student fee hikes

The committee charged with reviewing student fees will reconvene after a "misunderstanding" led SGA President Steve Glickman to leave a meeting early, said Ann Wylie, vice president of administrative affairs.

Holding a new meeting will give students a second chance to defeat three new controversial fees totaling $165 per student, all of which were approved after the departure of Glickman, who thought the Thursday meeting would have continued Monday. University President Dan Mote's cabinet met yesterday morning to approve or reject the fees but instead decided to have the original committee reconsider the fees to ensure fairness, Wylie said.

"Because there was that misunderstanding, because the vote was so close, it was in the best interest to do it again," Wylie said.

Glickman said holding another meeting is a good solution.

"This is what was supposed to happen in the first place," he said.

Wylie said she was unsure of proper protocol because it was her first time chairing the 13-member Committee for the Review of Student Fees. In the days before the meeting, Glickman told her he was leaving for Rosh Hashanah, and Wylie said she gave him the impression the meeting would "probably" stop at its scheduled 7:30 p.m. end time.

Glickman left at about 7:25 p.m., but the meeting continued until about 9:15 p.m.
"It was very clear that all the other people that had been doing this for a while expected us to finish the job," said Wylie.

After Glickman left, the committee approved three fees for projects traditionally paid for out of tuition dollars — $100 for university libraries, $30 for classroom improvements and $35 for the University Health Center. All students present voted to strike the classroom improvement fee, tying the vote at 5-5 with English professor Maynard Mack abstaining. Wylie broke the tie in favor of the fee.

Glickman said he would have voted against the fees, but he also said Mack likely would have voted for the fees, which would have tied the vote at six.

Mack didn't return phone calls or e-mails yesterday, but Graduate Student Government President Anu Kothari said she wasn't sure Glickman's absence caused Mack to abstain.

"I think [Mack] abstained because he wasn't sure about what the money was going to," Kothari said. "He abstained because he had his own opinion. It had nothing to do with anything else."

Kothari said she was happy to get another chance to oppose the fees but was troubled by the precedent of reconvening a meeting because one person was absent.

"What if it's a grad student who misses the meeting?" she asked. "I don't think it would bereconvened for us."

Yesterday morning, Student Government Association Senior Vice President Elliott Morris tried to attend the cabinet meeting to voice the student viewpoint on the fees, but cabinet meetings are closed to the public, and he was forced to leave. Morris said a new meeting is a "more fair way to handle" the situation.

It is not clear when the committee will meet again, but Kothari said a list of possible dates in the next two weeks has been sent to members.

"Is it troublesome for me? Yeah, I'll miss my daughter's bed time again," Kothari said. "But that's part of it. I'll just do it because I don't want to miss the meeting."

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