The Downtown Devil has produced a two-part series that takes an in-depth look at the details, process, active roles and origins of the implementation of a new student fee at Arizona State University.
Approval in the Presidents’ Council
Before the facilities fee can reach the hands of University administrators, the proposal must be approved at the Presidents’ Council, where different understandings of process has led to two varying perceptions of what constitutes approval.
ASASU Downtown President Tania Mendes, ASASU West President Andrew Clark and ASASU Polytechnic President Matt McCoy said the approval by three of the five presidents of a facilities fee resolution drawn up by the Presidents’ Council would technically be enough to move the fee forward. However, McCoy said he feels the fee should not move forward unless there is a unanimous agreement.
“I would like to see everyone approve this since this is a one-university fee and this is probably the biggest that’s happened in probably 30 years here at ASU,” he said. “I would feel much more comfortable proceeding to the next level if everyone agreed on it.”
Brendan O’Kelly, president of the Undergraduate Student Government at the Tempe campus, said he was under the impression the fee required unanimous approval.
“Once we come to a compromise … we take it back to the senates,” O’Kelly said. “It gets supported, and then we come together and we then start talking to the administration.”
Clark, McCoy and O’Kelly said the student governments will decide their stance on the fee, which would then, theoretically, be the vote expressed by the president. However, that is not always the case.
Clark said it is generally understood that the senates determine the voice of the president. However, Clark said there have been several instances in ASU’s history where a president has had a different opinion than his or her senate.
“Sometimes the senate’s gone after them and removed them from office for not following the rules,” he said. “That’s probably justified for not following the voice of the senate, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re bound to that.”
Georgeana Montoya, dean of student affairs at the Downtown campus, said the ASASUD constitution does not require presidents to vote in coordination with their senate.
“It’s really up to the individual president how she or he wants to motion it,” she said. “If they want to go forward or not.”
While Clark and McCoy said that they would have respected the decisions of their senates had they not approved their fee proposals, Mendes said the ASASUD Senate’s support of the fee would just add more push to its implementation.
“Me just talking doesn’t mean anything, but if I have my senate approving it and it passes on three campuses, that’s a lot more powerful than me just saying that this is what we need on our campus,” she said.
Mendes said that if her senate did not approve the fee she would hope to continue revisiting it until the proposal was approved.
“I would revisit the set up of the fee ⎯ why doesn’t my senate approve it?” Mendes said. “What is it that we don’t like about the fee?”
O’Kelly said it’s childish for Mendes to use her authority as president to keep bringing up the facilities fee until she gets what she wants.
“She can do that, but that’s a big waste of time for the students at the Downtown campus,” he said. “That’s really unfair for the students.”
O’Kelly also said he acts as a representative of his senate in the Presidents’ Council and doesn’t think it would be wise for Mendes or any president to vote differently than their student government.
“I don’t know what her senate is like, but I can tell you that if I did that, my senate would impeach me,” he said.
The role of the deans
One of the ambiguities in the Presidents’ Council meetings is the role of the deans of student affairs.
Montoya, dean of student affairs for the Downtown campus, said the deans have been included in meetings to provide the presidents with information necessary to make their decisions.
“We’re just here to support the students in whatever they decide to do,” she said. “If they decide to pass this fee, then we will support that in however they need our help and administrative point, but it’s really their ideas, their goals.”
However, O’Kelly, USG president, said he doesn’t think it’s fair to say that the deans, who are, along with Montoya, Calleroz White of the Tempe campus, Kevin Cook of the West campus and Gary McGrath of the Polytechnic campus, have strictly been giving information.
“Some are in support of this,” said O’Kelly, referring to the fee.
Of the four deans, O’Kelly said only White has remained objective in giving information and restrained her opinions unless asked. O’Kelly said the deans have been in support of their student body presidents.
“As the deans of student affairs they have to support as best they can their students and student body presidents,” he said. “I preferred if they all remained objective, but I have no control over that.”
McCoy, ASASUP president, said while the students have the ultimate say in what happens with the fee, the deans have only presented information in support of it.
“The deans give … you data and testimonies of why more facilities are needed on their various campuses,” he said. “They give you a good perspective of how a campus could benefit from more facilities.”
McCoy said his dean is in favor of the fee and has given him information of how the fee would help the Polytechnic campus expand and meet its goals.
“The way I’ve seen my deans approach me is they’ve given me the information and then told me in a realistic way what our campus is going to look like five years from now and what we honestly need to be successful,” he said.
However, Montoya said the deans think it is important for students to understand how the fee can positively and negatively affect them and have refrained from giving their opinion.
“I’m sure we all have our own opinions, but this is not the place for us to put them into,” she said. “It’s really the student’s decision.”
However, McCoy said an accurate description of the role the deans have taken is one of information providers who have outlined there is a necessity for the fee as a way for the University to continue growing during times of a lack in legislative funding.
“The state is further and further cutting education, so we as ASU are trying to find new ways to expand and grow ASU with lack of state funding,” he said.
“This fee is a way to do that.”
Contact the reporters at news@downtowndevil.com
