The mandatory student activity fee is up for a vote this week as the United Students Government elections continue.
As required by SUNY, every two years undergraduate students vote on whether or not the $75 fee should be mandatory or voluntary.
According to Timothy Ecklund, associate vice president for Campus Life, Buffalo State has a history of the fee being mandatory.
“I don’t know of a SUNY campus that doesn’t have it as a mandatory fee,” he said. “Several years ago, the student activity fee was designated to the student government for activities on campus.”
Ecklund said that due to the current budget situation, there are no other funds to support student activities on SUNY campuses other than the student activity fee.
“A voluntary fee would mean just that-whoever wants to pay would pay it which would certainly reduce the amount of funds that are available for clubs and organizations by a great amount,” he said. “So, it’s an essential source of activity funding for all of the student organizations and for the other components of the United Students Government and its activities.”
According to the Buffalo State website, the student activity fee funds a numerous amount of programs and activities including recreational and social activities, tutorial programs, student publications, recognized student organizations, and some scholarships and grant programs.
Ecklund said the fee also helps fund other activities that appeal to the student body such as Spring Fest, carnivals, homecoming activities and major guest speakers.
“We’ve had Elton Brown and Spike Lee and a number of others come to campus through the support of the student government with the student activity fee,” he said.
According to Christina Germann, executive vice president of USG said the student activity fee allows students to feel at home on campus.
“The mandatory student activity fee helps make Buffalo State the home away from home that everyone’s looking for,” she said. “In my opinion, I think it’s very important because everybody needs somewhere to go when they get stressed, when they have too much work and the student activity fee helps fund situations like that.”
Ecklund said he hopes students will exercise their democratic right by voting.
“I would hope that the students at Buffalo State have the presence of mind to see that it’s important to their experience at Buffalo State,” he said. “Our student organizations and our student government do so much on campus that it would be hard for me to see that students were thinking that their money wasn’t going to good use.”
Katie Anderson can be reached by email at anderson.record@live.com.