Can't Spell Suck without ASUC
Today through Thursday are the elections for the ASUC. I don't give a flying f*** about any candidates for any office. But I do want to emphasize the RSF referendum on the ballot. If you don't want to read my rant, just go to http://elections.asuc.org and cast your vote for the RSF.
So here are my thoughts on the RSF referendum. We are the only UC campus that does not have a mandatory fee for its rec services. This is also why we are the only UC with a ricockulous membership fee per semester. The finances of the RSF were funged from the very inception. This is a step in the right direction to get that department operationally in the red. The benefits of this should be self evident. By spreading the costs across a wider population it makes it cheaper for everyone to use. Also, mandatory fees are covered by financial aid, whereas the membership fee is not. Until recently the RSF granted financial aid waivers, but they are no longer doing that either.
The objections are few and unsound. What I've heard the most is that why should students who don't use the RSF pay for it. Oh....I don't know...maybe for the same reason you pay for the Chancellor's salary but never use him, or how about that Chem lab that I frequent! Our sister schools also don't seem to have any similar objection. In fact Davis and San Diego have opened up monsters of Rec Facilities that would make Solomon blush...all paid with mandatory fees. This Daily Cal article summarizes the referendum and the proposed fee structure pretty well.
In the interest of full disclosure, this year I served as a member of the RSF Advisory Board and saw the horrid state of its finances.
ADDENDUM: I enjoy reading Beetle Beat quite a bit, but I definitely have issues with him trying to get the referenda languages thrown out by the judicial council, but that's the least of it. I do want to point out this objection to the RSF referendum. It essentially raises the argument I mentioned above with the addition that Rec is bad because it's non-academic. Again, this is meritless. Either people should be prepared to have a true use-based libertarian basis of allocating costs or they need to recognize the value of allocating costs across a wider basis. I hope I don't have to point to lines in the school's budget that are not academic to point out the massive spending that we pay for with our fees. If student health and wellness are truly removed from university life, then I am prepared to call for cuts in spending in ALL areas of student services. The fact is, a student gym is NOT a luxury. With over 20,000 unique members, the RSF has a strong argument that is one of the most widely used units of the university (compare this to the number of people who use the Physical Ed Department that is funded completely with university funds or hell any other academic department on campus...ooh how about the UCPD? All of our tax dollars pay for them, what's up with that? I've never used them, why the hell should I pay for them? And if anyone thinks the UCPD are essential...I have a bridge for you). It IS an essential part of ANY university. We're not in the 70s where blowing rails was the gold standard of college health and fitness.
So here are my thoughts on the RSF referendum. We are the only UC campus that does not have a mandatory fee for its rec services. This is also why we are the only UC with a ricockulous membership fee per semester. The finances of the RSF were funged from the very inception. This is a step in the right direction to get that department operationally in the red. The benefits of this should be self evident. By spreading the costs across a wider population it makes it cheaper for everyone to use. Also, mandatory fees are covered by financial aid, whereas the membership fee is not. Until recently the RSF granted financial aid waivers, but they are no longer doing that either.
The objections are few and unsound. What I've heard the most is that why should students who don't use the RSF pay for it. Oh....I don't know...maybe for the same reason you pay for the Chancellor's salary but never use him, or how about that Chem lab that I frequent! Our sister schools also don't seem to have any similar objection. In fact Davis and San Diego have opened up monsters of Rec Facilities that would make Solomon blush...all paid with mandatory fees. This Daily Cal article summarizes the referendum and the proposed fee structure pretty well.
In the interest of full disclosure, this year I served as a member of the RSF Advisory Board and saw the horrid state of its finances.
ADDENDUM: I enjoy reading Beetle Beat quite a bit, but I definitely have issues with him trying to get the referenda languages thrown out by the judicial council, but that's the least of it. I do want to point out this objection to the RSF referendum. It essentially raises the argument I mentioned above with the addition that Rec is bad because it's non-academic. Again, this is meritless. Either people should be prepared to have a true use-based libertarian basis of allocating costs or they need to recognize the value of allocating costs across a wider basis. I hope I don't have to point to lines in the school's budget that are not academic to point out the massive spending that we pay for with our fees. If student health and wellness are truly removed from university life, then I am prepared to call for cuts in spending in ALL areas of student services. The fact is, a student gym is NOT a luxury. With over 20,000 unique members, the RSF has a strong argument that is one of the most widely used units of the university (compare this to the number of people who use the Physical Ed Department that is funded completely with university funds or hell any other academic department on campus...ooh how about the UCPD? All of our tax dollars pay for them, what's up with that? I've never used them, why the hell should I pay for them? And if anyone thinks the UCPD are essential...I have a bridge for you). It IS an essential part of ANY university. We're not in the 70s where blowing rails was the gold standard of college health and fitness.
Labels: Law School, Rabid Conservatives, Rabid Liberals
posted by Armen Adzhemyan at 11:12 AM
8 Comments:
"I don't give a flying f*** about any candidates for any office."
You know, they say blogs are driving a democratic revival in America.
Yes, and ASUC elections are the pinnacle of democracy in action. Yay vote for stupid nickname in quotes for assistant executive vice secretary general to nothing. I stopped caring about student government the day elections ended at UCLA during my senior year. I will also add that the psychos here take their precious ASUC waaaaay too seriously.
Oops...out of the red or in the black. Either works.
I absolutely agree with your analysis, Armen, but I nonetheless must place myself in the libertarian camp on this one. Just because the university already makes us pay for things we don't use doesn't mean we should be excited about the expansion of that system. There is an additional problem with mandatory fees: once we are required to pay, there is no incentive for customer service and improvement. My undergrad school charged a mandatory $80/semester fee and then regularly rented out the basketball courts to private parties. We could complain all we wanted, but as long as the school could double its revenue with no risk of losing customers, those complaints fell on deaf ears.
Hey Armen, lay off of the steroids.
I don't care about the RSF, and do not see why I should pay more so people can go to cheap spinning classes. If you want to ride an exercycle or do jumping jacks in an aerobics class, that's fine. Just don't make me pay for it.
As far as the Chancellor or the UCPD are concerned, i have no problem paying for their work because I, as with all other Berkeley students, am getting something--someone needs to be head the campus administration, and the police exist to prevent people such as myself from having to use their services.
armen on steroids? good one
Some history is in order here: the RSF USED to be completely free for students to use. In fact, I have no idea when it changed, as it was still free at the time that I graduated in 1996. (FWIW the other gym - the one designed by Julia Morgan - was also free, but Strawberry Canyon required a separate fee. Now it appears that one Cal Rec Club membership covers them all.)
I suspect it had to do with departments merging and splitting. At some point around the time when I was a student (1992-6) there was one department: Intercollegiate Activities and Recreational Sports. In other words, the same department that brought you the football games brought you intramurals as well.
To an extent that appeared to make some sense. They used the same facilities (at least more or less), and they could leverage the staffing of one for the other.
On the other hand, intercollegiate activities has a much different focus than recreational sports. And, I suspect, increasingly more of the money. I've heard they split up the department because of divergent focus, but I'm inclined to think that intercollegiate activities didn't want to subsidize rec sports which may not be able to sustain itself without separate fees.
However, I don't think the two departments were always merged. There's been an evolution over the 22 years or so since the RSF has been built (1994 was the 10 year anniversary) with the departments changing names, missions, etc. Also facilities have changed over the years - the intercollegiate teams now have more dedicated space. Plus, now they suck less, which also changes the picture.
What I don't remember is whether my tuition bill covered activities fees in some form. My sense is that they did, but this could/should be double-checked. And, also, revisit what happened that caused things to change.
My only concern is that there will be even MORE people at the gym fighting me for a machine with the lower fees. More people using RSF because of the low fees would suck given that there already is something like one machine per ten students if you go when it is busy. I would rather pay more to see less of my fellow classmates.
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