Various issues and events during the spring semester brought UB students together in protest, from a steep hike in tuition to the war in Iraq. Perhaps the issue that sparked the loudest reaction from the students was the revelation in late January that last year's Student Association Senate approved the paying of SA Executive Board tuitions through money from the Mandatory Student Activity Fee.
Last spring, when the SA Senate approved the 2002-03 SA budget, they approved a line that enabled the e-board - President Christian Oliver, Vice President Jennifer Brace and Treasurer Naazli Ahmed - to implement the tuition payment if they desired.
After an unsuccessful campaign to persuade the administration to waive the officers' tuition, after which Dennis Black, vice president for student affairs, said the university does not offer "benefits" to individuals whose work is "beyond the university," the board decided to accept the stipend.
According to Oliver, the board felt the raise was necessary to recruit qualified candidates for the positions.
"We want to make sure these positions are as lucrative as possible," Oliver said. "And this is one way of doing that."
Oliver said the increased stipends would bring the positions in line with similar positions at similar schools across the state, specifically, Syracuse University - a private institution - and SUNY Brockport.
The same positions at "other student governments, such as Brockport, make over $15,000 a year in stipend alone," he said. "... Syracuse is in the teens, and some are in the 20 and 30 thousands."
However, the executive boards at those two schools each make less than Oliver assumed they receive, according to Vince Felder, president of Brockport's Student Government and Andrew Thomson, president of the Student Association at Syracuse University.
Because money for SA stipends comes directly from the Mandatory Student Activities Fee, students were vocal in their response.
In addition to flooding The Spectrum with letters denouncing the move, over 1,700 people signed an online petition initiated by Todd Rezsnyak, a junior political science major, calling for a reversal.
"Personally, I find it offensive and rude to the student body that there was no consultation or any information about such a decision released until after the decision had already been made," stated Rezsnyak in a letter to the editor.
Within one week, the board decided to rescind the waiver. According to Oliver, angry student reaction did not directly influence the decision to not accept the money. He said they returned the money because it did not appear that such a stipend increase would be approved in the future if they did not act to appease the students' opinions.
"We still feel that the tuition waivers are the right thing to do for the future," Oliver said. "It's impossible for somebody to take one of these three positions, do the positions effectively and work less than 40 to 50 hours a week. There are a lot of students that, without a tuition waiver and a $9,000 stipend, are just unable to live off of that."
Last week, the SA Senate approved a $1,000 stipend increase for next year's executive board - president-elect George Pape, vice president-elect Jocelyn Tejeda and treasurer-elect Anthony Burgio.
Although sentiment among the incoming board was that the senate would have approved payment of the e-board's tuition if they asked for it, Burgio said, they decided not to because they campaigned on the promise that they would not accept an increase that covered their entire tuition.
-Written by Paul Eppolito
-Reporting by Paul Eppolito and Greg Fischman
Photo: Courtesy of Laron Fomby
