I suppose this constitutes my “Hello, World,” so I’d like to take a moment to talk a bit about myself, respond to the recent Student Government elections in Madison, an take a moment to comment on the title of the blog.
First, my name is Tyler Junger and I’m currently the secretary of the Student Services Finance Committee, which is an arm of the Student Government charged with providing comprehensive budgets to student groups on campus. Perhaps soon one of this blog’s authors will try to explain this whole funding process, but suffice to say it’s arduous, thankless work.
Now on to the meat and potatoes. If you’re reading this, you’re likely aware that elections for positions in the Student Government of ASM took place. I was elected to a College of Letters and Sciences seat on the Student Council and I look forward to serving with the Student Government.
Recently, I’ve been charged with being a polarizing force who’s looking to push out the “progressive” voice on campus. This is, in a word, codswallop. I value open, active, and honest debate between people of opposing viewpoints. Only through deliberation can we find a solution that will help students.
I think one of the biggest problems in the campus media is framing. This election was described as “FACES versus others.” Let’s take a look at the FACES platform (found here) and set up an agreement/disagreement tally between myself and them.
Preamble
• We will address and tackle issues that affect the lives of students and that provoke student concerns thereby empowering them to take initiative.
This is, generally, the goal of every candidate who runs for office. Nobody runs because they don’t want to help people.
• FACES will make the activities of ASM very public so that as many students as possible are aware that these problems are being addressed.
Accountability has been an issue within the Student Government for years. Everyone has ideas as to how to make the government more accountable. Actually doing so requires coordination and follow-through.
• Since student groups are a key component in grassroots organizing on campus FACES will reach out to as many groups as possible in order to create as wide of a coalition as possible, gaining support for our initiatives. This will involve making sure that student groups receive adequate funding. Also, we will use the grassroots committees to their fullest potential by utilizing them to unite students and conduct campaigns.
The vast array of student groups on campus is a boon the UW community, and their support should absolutely be sought to make student initiatives more effective. However, it’s this clause is of some concern: “This will involve making sure that student groups receive adequate funding.” I’m of the opinion that support can’t be related to funding, especially in student government, where investigative reporting is virtually nonexistent and the potential for corruption is high. Fortunately for me, the US Supreme Court shares my view.
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Tally after Preamble
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| Agree w/ idea |
Agree w/ method |
Disagree w/ idea |
Disagree w/ method |
| 3 |
2 |
0 |
1 |
Improving Affordability and Accessibility of higher education
• We will lobby the university and our legislators directly.
Make use of the legislative affairs committee.
• Propose a shared governance committee to monitor university spending and make sure that unnecessary costs are not passed onto students and working families.
This is certainly a good idea, but there are a few issues. First and foremost, in order for this committee to do what it says it will, it would need to meet constantly. Literally. The University already employs a department of accounting to monitor university spending. Just overseeing the budgets, not even actual spending, of only ~15 student groups takes the Student Services Finance Committee about two months’ worth of twice-weekly six-hour meetings every year. After that, there are constant budget alterations and policy violations, yadda yadda.
Point of the story: if this committee were to be made, it would likely have to rely on information provided by the University. That information can be shaded however the U wants it, so due diligence would be hard.
Second problem: who’s to say that costs at the university are unnecessary? What should we be paying for? Shared Gov applicants? Elected representatives? It’s a state university, and there are state employees making these decisions. We have to recognize that the state of Wisconsin also has a stake in this too.
I agree with a committee whose job it is to oversee these things, but the implementation of this specific committee is damned near impossible. It doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try, but we shouldn’t expect this committee to be the be-all-end-all of funding accountability.
• FACES will make sure that any tuition increases correspond with dollar for dollar increases in financial aid and that the financial aid process is fair.
In principle, I absolutely agree. Where’s the money come from, though? If this would result in the value of a UW degree decreasing over time because the state legislature won’t authorize tuition increases because it can’t fund financial aid, this is self-defeating. The sad fact is that this particular university won’t be accessible to everyone.
There’s an alternate solution. The UW could increase standards for acceptance until they got to a point where few enough students enrolled that whatever financial aid funding is currently available is sufficient for the students admitted. The students that don’t get in? They can go to Point.
Obviously, neither of these situations is likely nor desirable. There needs to be a pragmatic approach, though, and one that doesn’t put the student government as an adversary to the university. If everyone’s yelling, nothing gets said.
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Tally after Affordability
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| Agree w/ idea |
Agree w/ method |
Disagree w/ idea |
Disagree w/ method |
| 6 |
3 |
0 |
3 |
Encouraging a safe campus climate opposed to harassment and sexual violence
• We will start an education campaign about rape and sexual violence using campus groups. This education will be made public and readily available to all students. Also we will survey the existing programs and propose alterations if they do not adequately educate students.
I get two things out of this. First, don’t many programs already exist? PAVE, for instance? That’s already “public and readily available to all students” by necessity. Matter of fact, many if not all Greeks are required to attend PAVE training.
Second, are they proposing telling student groups how to spend their money? Not only is it inappropriate for the Finance Committee or the SSFC to interfere that heavily in the goings-on of student groups, but it’s absolutely a violation of viewpoint neutrality. “Do this to your program” isn’t a phrase which should be uttered by either committee. What if there was a pro-rape RSO? They would have to be given funding in a viewpoint neutral manner, and this proposal would blatantly violate that principle.
On the idea of promoting sexual violence education, I’m in full agreement, but the Student Government shouldn’t be pushing groups to take up causes which they don’t want to.
• While Blue Safety phones are available throughout Lakeshore, few can be found in Southeast or along main off-campus locations. We will push for more phones to be added to the campus and surrounding areas.
Before supporting this, I’d like to see how often those safety phones are used. It seems to me that a far safer course of action is to pick up a cell phone and call 264-COPS while running away, not standing and waiting for help to come while a mugger points a gun at your head. It’s policy that sounds good, but may not have any real effect. If it can be shown that they would be useful, I’d fully support adding more phones, just as I’d fully support the University or state paying for them, since citizen safety in a potentially dangerous area is obviously their purview.
• In order to make rapes and sexual assaults easily reportable we will propose to have the rape hotline in student wisc cards in order to ensure that no crimes go unreported and that they are dealt with adequately and promptly.
Excellent idea with reasonable implementation. Why not include the campus police, poison control, and suicide hotline, though?
• We will reform safe ride and safe walk to ensure that they can effectively handle the volume of requests they receive. The safe ride and safe walk systems are good ideas but have many current limitations such as only covering a limited area and having a relatively small staff to handle the number of students who may need assistance on weekends. FACES will try to increase the budgets of these systems or revamp their structures to ensure that students are protected and safe when they need to be.
I honest to God wasn’t aware that there were problems with capacity in SAFEWalk or SAFERide. Apparently neither are the campus newspapers, since neither has printed an article talking about capacity since last April. If anyone can prove that there is a problem, then it should be addressed.
Policy shouldn’t be passed because it sounds good.
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Tally after Safety
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| Agree w/ idea |
Agree w/ method |
Disagree w/ idea |
Disagree w/ method |
| 8 |
2 |
1 |
7 |
Improving Diversity Standards and Tolerance
• We will push for a more diverse faculty by advocating for domestic partner benefits and a incentives for minority professors to come to Madison. Efforts that contribute to campus diversity, such as mentoring students from underrepresented minority groups, should count positively toward tenure decisions as well.
I agree with the sentiment, but tenure decisions are faculty matters. If students start having influence over tenure because of diversity, we start down a slippery slope. Faculty also have the interests of the university in mind, and we should trust them to make the right decisions. Faculty have rights, as well (36.09(4) addresses them.) Assuming that students are the only individuals interested in the betterment of the university is a mistake.
• FACES will advocate for increased finding of minority scholarships, such as the PEOPLE program, and will insist that these programs are not reduced.
I agree, but the PEOPLE program has 29 sponsors, and not one of them is the UW. The School of Education administers the program, but unless I’m reading the data wrong, all the funding comes from outside sources. Further, the main success of the PEOPLE program isn’t the scholarship money provided to students of minority backgrounds, but the pipeline they establish for minority admissions. Gotta look at the nuances in these programs.
• One of our first priorities will be to make sure that students who choose to live on the multi-cultural residence floor do not have to pay extra to live there. We understand that creating a sense of community is key in the retention of minority students and that adding this extra fee discourages diversity in Madison.
I agree, most absolutely.
• We will insist that elected members of ASM and SSFC take a diversity training class. Many members of ASM are not in touch with every student and every point of view on campus. Therefore, we want to make sure that ASM makes decisions fairly and with the full knowledge of the consequences of their actions.
I agree and actually proposed this for SSFC training next year.
• We will use our lobbying power to make sure that diversity issues are tackled within Bascom Hall and within the capitol.
That’s implicit in the other proposals and really isn’t an idea in and of itself.
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Tally after Diversity
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| Agree w/ idea |
Agree w/ method |
Disagree w/ idea |
Disagree w/ method |
| 12 |
5 |
1 |
8 |
Advocating for Environmental Responsibility
• We will strive to get the university to reduce waste in general including in UW dining halls where enormous amounts of perfectly good food is simply thrown out every day, advocating for increased use of biodegradable products and shifting away from Styrofoam use, making sure that recycling programs are adhered to, increasing the use of fair trade products, and in decreasing energy use overall.
I agree with the idea, but there’s no method of doing this other than lobbying. I personally support reevaluating and extending the “WE Conserve 20% by 2010″ program to project UW into the future through Student Government’s Shared Governance committees.
(Preface: I’m a student supervisor at Liz Waters Dining Room) Second, when Housing menus are made they’re done weeks ahead of time and ordered in quantities that can be reasonably expected to sell. However, there are an infinite number of factors which can affect how well a certain product sells: weather, sports events, finals, etc. Housing has no incentive to make too much food, since any meal not sold is a loss in revenue. Saving everything that hits the serving line for the next meal leads to food safety issues, and donating it to local soup kitchens, etc, could cause concern since Housing is technically a state body. I’m not saying it’s a good thing to throw “perfectly good food” away, but there are mitigating factors.
• Finally, we believe that for the general health of our campus and for the beauty of our surroundings we must cut back on pesticide use.
Vague, and I actually disagree. To my knowledge, nobody has ever shown that the pesticides on campus are harming students, staff, or anything other than the bugs they kill. It’s possible that they are, but I haven’t seen the datea.
This idea is slightly contradictory; some of the most beautiful grass on campus (outside Camp Randall) is found on Bascom Hill. It’s so pretty because it’s loaded down with herbicides, fungicides, pesticides, slug repellent, etc. From my limited knowledge, there’s a continuum of beauty and chemical use, so people had better get used to seeing bugs on beetles on dandelions on Bascom Hill.
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Tally after Environment
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| Agree w/ idea |
Agree w/ method |
Disagree w/ idea |
Disagree w/ method |
| 13 |
5 |
2 |
10 |
Creating Responsible and Accountable Representation
• By holding semester listening sessions, making ourselves available, and being as transparent as possible we will create a leadership that recognizes that every student in this university is an associated student of Madison and deserves to be heard.
I agree with the idea of transparency, but I believe that the Student Government should be sending a newsletter to all students every other week which details the actions of the government in that fortnight. Further, I want the first resolution passed by the Student Council this session to state that all new official documents will be labeled as coming from the Student Government of the Associated Students of Madison. I want to change the colloquial term from ASM, which is all the student body, to the Student Government, which is what it is.
• In order to meet our goals we will take advantage of the lobbying opportunities both within the university and in the capitol.
Still not a new idea. Third (?) time it’s mentioned in this document.
• In order for our university and its leaders to be responsible we will make sure that UW-Madison is investing in socially responsible causes.
Yep, but any “socially responsible causes” taken up should be directly related to the needs of students on campus.
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Tally after Accountability
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| Agree w/ idea |
Agree w/ method |
Disagree w/ idea |
Disagree w/ method |
| 15 |
5 |
2 |
12 |
So all in all, the ideas that the FACES slate and I, who they choose to see as the “opposition,” actually agree on almost every point. The difference?
It’s all a matter of method.
-Tyler
