Dear Chancellor Bernie Patterson,
UW-Stevens Point students need our help more than ever. For years, administrators have seized control of student fees given to students by state law. Even while I was president of Student Government Association between 2003 and 2004, this kind of interference was happening on several levels. I’m grateful that hard-working senators recognized how disrupted this process is and took steps to correct it.
The Student Government Association overwhelmingly passed broad reforms to take back control of $1,188 in fees paid each year by every full-time student. The reforms are a return to the mandatory structure of one Segregated University Fee Allocation Committee (SUFAC) per campus. Chancellor, you oppose this reform and don’t care about existing regulations that say SGA is and always was responsible for the allocation of this fee money.
I encourage others to contact you and pressure you to restore student rights. Former Chancellors Nook and Bunnell also supported this corruption, but this is your chance to make things right. This is your chance to be a Student’s Chancellor like Chancellor Lee Sherman Dreyfus was.
During my term, I was proud to serve using powers entrusted with me. Sadly, that experience was limited because most of the input and control promised to us by law had already been quietly seized by administrators. Today, it’s only gotten worse, and the control over the University Centers and Health Services remains the prize.
The attachments from legislators show how widespread criticism has become. I’m disappointed to see UWSP shown so negatively by legislators and news outlets. Right now it’s completely deserved, and we need to face that fact. But you have the opportunity to correct this by not blocking the reform that students passed and are trying to implement despite your objections.
As I told several regents during their June meeting, this is a moral issue. We are the UWSP community, and we protect its integrity. Those of us who served on SGA should be shocked to see it under a direct attack by administration. When I spoke by phone with Regents President Pruitt, he understood exactly how administrators have divided and conquered student power. He knows fees doubled to $9 million in the last five years! Regent Pruitt isn’t enforcing regents policies, he says, because he doesn’t want to step on anyone’s toes. I told him that I would speak to the SGA Senate directly, and I did. They did the right thing, and I’m ready to call Regent Pruitt back to tell him that the students have done everything in their power to correct things only to be blocked by your actions. I’m deeply disappointed.
Pressure from Representative Marlin Schneider and Representative Gordon Hintz to hasn’t been enough. Take a look at the press release from Senator Russ Decker, titled, “UWSP Officials Ignoring State Law and Student Rights.” It states: “Students have been exploited by this scheme, which favors fancy buildings and fat budgets over state law,” and “I requested an audit that clearly states Student Government Association is the single representative body for students. The audit has been misrepresented by UW officials. It does not state that UW policies or SS36.09(5) are being followed, and I now believe that the cooperative reform discussions praised by the audit were actually one more delay tactic.” (www.thewheelerreport.com/releases/December10/…/1216deckeruwsp.pdf)
This is student money. Thanks to State Statute 36.09(5), administrators can’t just take it and we shouldn’t let them. The legacy of Lee Sherman Dreyfus should not be dishonored in the building named for him. He supported strong student power. Did you know each student pays $1,070 for that building over four years? That huge bill went around required approval from SGA. These problems are recognized in a UW System audit (www.wisconsin.edu/audit/segfees.pdf).
History gets rewritten at UWSP to support this problem. My own name was misused by former SGA advisor Ketchum-Ciftci. As I understand it, when Senators were fed up with her last year, she told them she had been approved as advisor on my watch and that SGA was powerless to remove her. We never approved her, and thank goodness that Senators fired her in an April vote of 2-18. But you, as Chancellor, refused to stop paying her in that capacity. As Senator Decker wrote, “The former SGA advisor continues to be paid more than $18,000 for performing those duties. This is one of many red flags.” Whether or not it’s precisely $18,000, I don’t know. It should be zero since she’s no longer in that capacity. I’ve attached a letter from former SGA President Ross Cohen where he says she told him to mind his own business after speaking out about Centers budgets. I imagine I’ll be getting the same message after writing this. Even John Jury, who many of us trusted and liked so much, has sided against students to support this shady scheme. As directors of the Centers, JJ and Laura absorb most of the power taken from student leaders.
So, I ask that you support UWSP students by supporting the Student Government Association’s actions. Here is the core fact to insist that you recognize: the SGA Finance Committee is the only Segregated University Fee Allocation Committee (SUFAC) at UWSP. There are not four SUFACs, like your administration insists there have been for 20 years. It’s a lie. It’s never been that way, and you know it. Three of those committees and their huge budgets are now controlled by administration. Students on those committees legally answer to SGA but they deny that fact and hide behind the Chancellor. The latest reforms absorbed them into SGA constitution but they refuse to cooperate.
Don’t wait 30 days to sign off on SGA’s changes. Side with the students today and back the corrections to return UWSP student segregated allocation to comply with state law.
Nicholas Crawford
2003-2004 UWSP Student Body President
Stevens Point News 