Far, far away at the edge of campus atop the rolling hills of Bruin Walk looms a dark, cold castle where the fearless souls who dare enter brave the bureaucratic maze known as Murphy Hall.
The trek up to Murphy is far, but not as distant as its communication with students. As I set out to solve the mystery of the Instructional Enhancement Fee on BAR accounts, I stumbled upon this larger puzzle: How do we bridge the communication rift between administrators and students?
There’s no better example of Murphy’s bureaucratic tendencies than the enigma behind the Instructional Enhancement Fee. We see it posted on our BAR accounts near the end of every quarter. But what is it?
After two years of speculating, I finally decided to find out. According to Assistant Executive Dean of Finance and Administration Nick Hernandez, the fee is $6 per unit to fund class Web sites and on-campus computing labs and to partly support the free printing in such places.
But it’s not so free. Aside from the obvious reason that it’s actually prepaid because we partly pay for them through this fee, a lot of us don’t know that our money goes to such services, and we actually lose money because we pay for something we don’t even use.
At first, I thought I was the only one in the dark, but asking students around campus made me feel like a quiz-show host in search of the one person who knew the answer to the million-dollar question.
“I’m just surprised. You’re saying all these (services) are available to us?” Sharona Daneshrad, a first-year undeclared student, said. When I told her about the “free” printing, she talked about how some students pay for printing at the library, not knowing that the printing accounts they partially pay for remain untouched.
“I think (Murphy) should be more transparent with what the money is going to. Unless I know what my money is going to, I won’t take advantage of it,” Ben Kurtz, a third-year political science student, said.
But then again, as third-year biochemistry student Rahul Ghosh said, “There’s loads of charges (on URSA). A lot of people don’t bother to care.”
And there was the link to the Web page explaining what the fee was when I logged onto my BAR account. Except that the Web page that’s supposed to tell me where the computing labs are doesn’t work, and I still don’t know about the printing accounts because the info page doesn’t tell me.
It’s our responsibility to look up the information about administrative issues ““ but where are we supposed to ask questions or raise our opinions about our fees?
Many students find it difficult to direct specific questions and concerns to Murphy with its infinite departments and administrators. On the other hand, Murphy also cannot know what these questions and concerns are because students are not actively raising them.
According to Hernandez, he receives about 20 responses per year from students about the instructional enhancement fee. He says he cannot determine whether the few responses indicate that many students approve of it, or that many students simply don’t know about it.
But I wonder how those 20 students figured out where to direct their concerns about the fee, because I couldn’t find any links under the fee’s Web pages allowing feedback or with information about administrators in charge of it.
I was finally referred to Hernandez by administrators whom I found by searching the Directory under “College of Letters and Science” and “Finance.” Searching “Instructional Enhancement” only directed me to the Office of Instructional Development.
When students have questions or concerns about specific issues or policies, they just don’t know where to go or start. The simple fact is that there needs to be a centralized, open system that gives Murphy the opportunity to explain administrative issues and directs students to the appropriate place to raise these questions and opinions with ease.
Speaking of instructional enhancement, maybe a portion of the fee could be used to establish such a system. And maybe then we’ll magically transform our current visions of Murphy from a vexing, intimidating institution to a helpful, lucid one. Then one day, cold, dark Murphy Hall will not be so far away.
Send your fairy-tale ending to Yoo at jyoo@media.ucla.edu. Send general comments to viewpoint@media.ucla.edu.