ASASUD senators discussed the results of the survey given to students regarding the proposed student fee increase at Friday’s Senate meeting.
Freshman Sen. Daiyaan Colbert, who presented the results, said 286 out of the 429 students surveyed were against the increase, while only 71 students were for the increase. Another 72 students said they were unsure about the proposal.
“There are still some students who don’t understand where the money’s going,” Colbert said.
However, some senators believed there were several factors that could have led to some of the data being skewed.
Sen. Natasia Bongcas, School of Letters and Sciences, said errors on the survey, misunderstanding that the student fee issue was not tied to tuition increase and a lack of sufficient education regarding the student fee may have led to incorrect data.
Also, Bongcas said students might have rushed the survey in order to receive an ASASUD shirt.
Freshman Sen. Vivian Padilla agreed with Bongcas that some students who took the survey might have linked the tuition increase with the potential student fee increase.
“I’m not saying the results are skewed or anything. I believe that a lot of students don’t want it, and I also know that a lot of students do want it,” Padilla said. “We did a great job, but people did link tuition and student fee increase into one.”
Judicial Board member Irma Canseco said, despite the vastly negative result of the survey, most students she spoke to were for the increase because of the organizations that would receive money.
However, she said students had mixed feelings that the cost of attendance would increase because of the fee.
“A lot of students are for it but are against it at the same time, so they don’t know how to answer the question, or don’t know how to express how they feel toward the fee,” Canseco said.
Several funding requests were also approved for Downtown campus student organizations during the meeting, two of which were amended by the organization prior to the request and a third amended by the Senate.
The National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences originally requested $3,472.58 for a trip to Las Vegas for a journalism convention, but recommended amending that amount to $2,957.58 before the Senate began deliberating. The Senate amended the amount and passed it with full support.
The National Association of Hispanic Journalists also recommended amending their original amount of $500 for food to $210. The senators unanimously passed the request after the amount was adjusted.
The request of $1,037.99 by the American Indian Social Work Student Association was the only request that was failed at the meeting. However, after the request was reopened, the organization was allocated $450.
The final request was from Active Minds at ASU for $545 to be used for their Stress Out Day event. This was the only request that was not amended and passed with complete backing from the Senate.
The Senate appropriated nearly $4,200, leaving ASASUD with approximately $7,500 remaining in unappropriated funds for their semester budget, according to ASASUD documents.
Issues also discussed at the meeting included Colbert’s decision to not resign, an explanation of his impeachment hearing by Director of Parliamentary Procedures Jose Rios Lua, and how to improve the election code for next year’s election.
Contact the reporter at connor.radnovich@asu.edu
