 "Photo: Jami Bonner")
The SUUSA Senate unanimously approved a library fee resolution Wednesday that will now be reviewed by The Student Fee Review Committee and the President’s Council before it can be adopted.
The resolution requests a $5 fee per student, per semester, which, based on 6,400 full-time students, would generate $64,000 a year for the Gerald R. Sherratt Library, according to a document created to submit to the Student Fee Review Committee.
The additional funds collected through the student library fee would be used to fund databases such as LexisNexis and access technologies, which ease searching and finding of articles software that allows linking between databases as well as electronic books and print books.
The library fee resolution lists an annual library materials inflation rate of 10 percent as part of the need for the fee. The resolution also states the library collection budgets have not increased in the last 10 years despite an increase in the student body and loss of funding sources such as the $12,000 to $15,000 per year provided by the Marriner S. Eccles foundation that the library will not receive this year. The resolution also lists a $48,000 2009-2010 library budget cut as an additional reason for the need of a library fee.
Present at the meeting were Vik Brown, associate professor of library media and associate library director and John Eye, library services dean and associate professor of library science, who explained that University of Utah and Utah State University have had success with student library fees that range between $6 and $22 per student per semester.
Whitney Greenhalgh, a senior biology major from St. George, asked the Senate for $4,912.50 to supplement a $21,825 Orphanage Outreach Dominican Republic trip scheduled for March 13 to 20.
Greenhalgh said that all measures were taken to keep the cost of the 15-student trip to a minimum.
According to the resolution, the “trip will be a capstone opportunity for students” that will provide experiential knowledge.
Greenhalgh said that a physician and dentist have volunteered to accompany the students on the trip and that the opportunity for students to watch surgeries helps them to learn if they are ready for an educational path in the medical field.
SUUSA Sen. Nate Anderson, College of Science, who co-sponsored the resolution, said opportunities like the Dominican Republic trip help pre-health students to have a better understanding of global health and the experiences gained from such a trip will help students to become better in their professions.
“It is these types of immersion experiences that will help broaden our perceptions of what our future patients need, and how to best meet them,” Anderson said.
The Senate will investigate the resolution.
Jeremy Christiansen, a junior Spanish major from Blanding, represented a group called the Student Advocates in urging the Senate to reconsider eliminating the Judicial Council.
Christiansen asked if the Judicial Council could remain and instead the council’s stipend be reduced or eliminated, to address the need to reduce student government expenditure.
He said an independent judiciary is an important part of a government and eliminating the Judicial Council and replacing it with an ad hoc committee comprised of various student government officers seemed to “violate the basic principles of the separation of powers.”
He said when comparing SUU’s government to the U.S. government, the missing link is advocates for the student body and that is the role the Student Advocates would like to take on.
Christiansen said the group would not only like to help the student body with filing grievances, but would also like to play an advisory role for students such as those that are forming clubs or would like to run for student government.
Academic Vice President Megan Lloyd said she would like discuss the issue further with Christiansen.
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