In a memo sent out Monday, six campuses' student governments announced they would be boycotting the Council of Commonwealth Student Governments (CCSG) conference this weekend.
Student Government Association (SGA) Presidents from Penn State Abington College and New Kensington, Delaware County, Fayette, York and McKeesport campuses, sent the memo to address problems they felt smaller campuses were having with CCSG.
The memo's sponsors said they were especially displeased with the number of meetings held at University Park in a year and the cost of attending each.
"We believe that the Council as a whole has overlooked the circumstances of smaller, low-budget campuses, and it appears not to understand the differences in their environments and needs," the memo said.
Ray Mastre, New Kensington SGA president, said the problems started at the last CCSG conference in late January, when the question of the number of meetings to hold was addressed. Five campuses asked to reduce the number to five meetings a year instead of six, as 14 other campuses wanted. Mastre said the cost to attend the meetings can be very high, especially in light of smaller campus' budgets.
"It's been an issue from a New Kensington standpoint," he said. "It's not cost effective for us to come up six times."
Ashley Martin, Penn State Abington College's SGA president, said although Abington is not a small school, it sympathizes with the small campuses.
Uzair Qadeer, Delaware County's SGA president, said his organization spends anywhere from $500 to $1,000 per trip. He said the CCSG constitution only requires four meetings, and the sixth meeting is unnecessary.
"We don't really need six, only five. We think five meetings can adequately represent the campuses' tight budgets," he added.
CCSG President Joe Curigliano said after the January meeting, he and Vice President Kevin D'Ausilio began working on a cost-analysis of the meetings, looking for ways to reduce travel expenses.
"A budget strain is understandable," he said. "We have been doing a cost analysis before this was set up trying to save campuses money."
Curigliano said the memo surprised him. He said the presidents who wrote the memo knew about the cost analysis before it was sent, and he had met with three of the six campus presidents in the past two weeks to discuss their concerns.
Also addressed in the memo was CCSG conference productivity. The six campus presidents called the meetings "ineffective," saying caucuses have struggled to form valid goals and then complete them.
Curigliano defended the meetings and said people have told him they have helped.
"An old saying I have always followed is 'You get out what you put in.' So it goes with these council weekends. We have SGA presidents' peers saying that the meetings we have have helped them out a lot," he said. "Right now I have six [presidents] blaming 13 for not making progress this year.
While not included in the memo, several of its authors have identified CCSG's structure as a problem. Martin said CCSG needs to look at its current structure and determine ways to improve it.
"Other presidents have left things the way they are," she said. "For people to look at the current structure is important."
Curigliano said he has not heard any major suggestions on how to change the structure. Several of the memo's sponsors said its purpose was to alert the Council to its problems.
"It's just to get people to wake up and listen," Martin said. "It's really more of an attention-getter."
Qadeer said the boycott should show the larger campuses the importance of the smaller campuses to CCSG.
"I think the council will realize the Commonwealth Colleges have a role to play in CCSG," he said.
Curigliano said he would like to have the presidents attend the meeting and discuss their issues.
