Amid low turnout, Hill residents have voted against a proposed increase to the student activities fee.
Between Feb. 26-28, students on the Hill cast online votes on whether or not to increase the Hill student activities fee from the current $27 a year to $36, $45 or $54 a year.
Only about 13 percent of the Hill’s roughly 10,000 residents cast a vote. Of those students, 62 percent voted against increasing the fee.
“With all the tuition increases at the moment, the extra cost doesn’t seem necessary,” said Imara Kassam, a first-year bioengineering student and external vice president of the Dogwood and Cedar residential buildings.
She said she feels that the money on the Hill is not always used in the best way, citing the recent approval of $200 for a pizza party in her building as an example.
Charle Le, a second-year history student and president of the On-Campus Housing Council, said he was disappointed with the number of people who voted.
But there also appears to have been confusion surrounding the vote. Kendall Roth, a first-year global studies and political science student, said she did not know the vote was even happening.
She saw the email announcing the vote from the Office of Residential Life, but did not open it, the Hitch resident said.
“We get a lot of random emails from Housing,” Roth said. “I’ve stopped reading most of them.”
The vote was advertised the same way all Hill events are advertised ““ via fliers, emails and word of mouth, Le said.
One student official on the Hill criticized the wording of the online ballot.
Students were asked to vote for an increase of $1, $2 or $3 per month. The wording had been changed from asking students to approve an increase of $9, $18 or $27 per year, said Alex Le, internal vice president for the Dogwood and Cedar residential buildings and a second-year chemical engineering student.
“They were obviously (using) the lowest numbers possible to make more students want to vote for (the fee increase),” Le said.
He added that the division of the vote into two questions caused further confusion. The first question asked if the fee should increase at all, while the second question asked how much the fee should increase if the proposal does pass.
“I was really upset about it,” Alex Le said. “I had students say to me that they were confused. They made it seem like they were trying to trick us (with their wording).”
Charle Le said he felt the ballot’s wording was factual and provided an accurate breakdown of the numbers.
“The fee must increase eventually,” he said. “Hill programs cannot be sufficiently maintained with the current $27 rate.”
The last fee increase, which took place about five years ago, occurred because housing costs increased as a whole. This vote was the first time students were able weigh in with their own opinions.
Next week, student representatives will discuss the possibility of another vote happening the following year. Programming on the Hill is expected to remain the same for next year.