Saturday, August 21, 2004

$40 OSL student group fee

Those of you not privy to student group signatory emails may not already know that the Office of Student Life, a student service organization affiliated with the university, is planning to charge $40 for ASUC student groups to register with them. As it is currently written, student groups cannot get ASUC funding without registering with OSL. The OSL also offers outdoor reservation services, plus some student group advisement services.

The OSL's position on the potential mandatory fee:

We regret that it is necessary to initiate this charge at a time when
students are feeling increased financial constraints. However, due
to the significant budget crisis of a $72K cut to our permanent
budget, this fee is necessary in order to continue our services as
well as improve and develop quality programs for student groups at
CAL. We hope that you will take this opportunity to fully utilize our
services. This year, the office has implemented a variety of new
services including leadership workshops and on-line leadership
resources. During the coming year, groups will continue to have an
assigned staff advisor and can expect to see increased support on
event planning and group development from staff advisors and student
peer advisors. Over the past year, OSL has been committed to
developing additional resources and opportunities for student leaders,
all of which will be advertised in the Fall semester. In the absence
of the fee, the alternative would be to limit the number of groups
that the campus could recognize or limit the types of activities that
the groups could conduct and the imposition of this fee is
unavoidable.

Very simply, this fee disproportionately affects groups with less money. Groups with less than a grand or so in funding might simply not be able to afford the fee while simultaneously maintaining their services. The OSL is estimating that this fee would cover about a quarter of over seventy thousand dollars in budget cuts; this is based on the assumption that as many groups register this year as did in previous years and that no groups would be discouraged from OSL registration due to the fee.

I can attest as a Squelchee that we've not used OSL services extensively. Perhaps other groups have found them a more fruitful resource, especially for outdoor space reservation.

More as it develops...

posted by Rebecca C. Brown at 11:44 PM

Comments:

Post a Comment