About 100 students marched up the stairs of Kerckhoff Hall to
Room 417 on Tuesday night, the room where the undergraduate student
government meeting was taking place ““ and ultimately, where
the fate of a new fee proposal, and the thousands of dollars it
could potentially generate, lay.
Students representing community service organizations slowly
filled the space around the table where the councilmembers sat.
Organizers did this to present the reality of the large numbers of
students the council’s decision would effect.
At Tuesday’s meeting of the Undergraduate Students
Association Council, the PULSE (Promoting Understanding and
Learning through Service and Education) fee referendum proposal was
voted unanimously to be placed on the general election ballot.
A fee referendum is a student-imposed fee increase pending the
approval of USAC, the chancellor and, ultimately, the students. If
the referendum garners the majority of the undergraduate student
body support, the fee will require all undergraduate students to
pay the amount voted for.
The referendum will go to a vote during USAC general elections
during fifth week.
The PULSE $6.50 fee referendum would go to four community
service organizations that sponsor nearly 100 service projects,
from mentoring underprivileged children to providing free
counseling- to UCLA students.
Originally asking for $8 per quarter, the leaders of the
proposal revised their referendum and reduced the fee to $6.50 per
quarter to help alleviate the already existing financial burden on
students.
“The fee would not expand our programs, but allow us just
to sustain our offices at the minimal budget capacity,” said
Crystal Lee, the community service commissioner of USAC.
Keeping transportation to and from the service sites free for
the volunteers is the most “haunting” and
“permeating” problem for both the community activities
committee and the community service commission, Lee said.
The commission owns eight vans, but Lee stressed that all are
old and need regular maintenance.
“Our vans go out to the community five to seven days a
week, eight weeks of the quarter. Two of the vans are older than 10
years, but there are no funds to replace them,” Lee said.
Lee shared an incident that occured last spring in which the
brakes of one of the vans failed to function while on the freeway.
No one was injured, but the potential danger this problem poses
affects the ability to maintain the projects’ use of the
vans.
Another group, the Student Initiated Outreach Center, expressed
its need for funding, as it is the only service organization
currently funded by the federal government, and its budget faced
cuts of 75 percent.
The center was created in response to drastic drops in the
admission of underrepresented students to help create access to
education for minority groups.
If the referendum does not pass, the center will have to cut
down the free resources it offers students, such as the UCLA
Vanpool carpooling service, counseling and unlimited printing
services, said Diem Tran, a representative of the organization.
Lee also shared Tran’s view and concluded that if the
referendum doesn’t pass, “there would unfortunately
just be downgrading all around” in reference to the number
and scope of projects they sponsor.
“We’ve taken a lot of strides not to rely on
students, but when demands for providing service increases, and
students want to volunteer, we have to turn to (the student body)
for help,” Lee said.
Lee and Tran both reasserted that turning to students for help
in funding the projects is always a last resort.
Besides looking for other sources of funding like applying for
grants, fund-raising and changing functions to be more efficient
and cost effective, representatives from all four organizations
that stand to benefit from the PULSE referendum say they have
simply not been able to buffer the funding cuts any longer, and
consequently saw the necessity to propose a fee referendum.
The PULSE fee referendum for these student-initiated,
student-run and student-funded groups will be placed on the general
election ballot and if passed, will become a mandated fee starting
in fall 2005.