The Student Activity Fee Board will discuss possible changes in the guiding principles that govern the $2 million student activity fee during a public meeting at 2 p.m. today in 233 HUB-Robeson Center.
Stan Latta, director of unions and student activities, said the board will consider changing multiple principles, including one that specifies the composition of the groups that allocate the student activity fee. Latta said the principles have not been changed since the board's inception in 1996.
Principle five currently specifies that the fee should be allocated by "an appropriate student committee or organization on each campus," according to the student activity fee handbook.
Graduate Student Association President Brian Borawski said a proposed new form of the principle would allow faculty and staff also to be members of the allocation committees.
Latta said he chaired a committee that reviewed the principles. He said the reason for the proposed change to principle five is to "put in writing what the process really is." He said the committees that allocate the activity fee at Commonwealth Campuses already include faculty and staff members.
According to the student activity fee handbook, Commonwealth Campus allocation committees should include seven students, one faculty member, one staff member and the campus director of student affairs or a representative of the director.
Gale Siegel, director of student affairs at Penn State Abington, said the composition of the allocation committee at her campus had not changed since its inception in 1996. She said questions about principle five had not been raised.
"It seemed to be a fair composition as long as students have the majority," she said.
Latta said the changes were not related to the proposed Fee Allocation Board (FAB) at the University Park because the details of FAB have not been finalized yet.
The work group that is planning FAB is scheduled to submit its final proposal to Vice President for Student Affairs Vicky Triponey sometime this week.
FAB tentatively consists of seven appointed students and three faculty members with voting privileges. It will also have a nonvoting student chairman and a faculty adviser. FAB will allocate money to the current student-run University Park Allocations Committee, big allocations and a proposed Student Programming Association.
Borawski said he is opposed to the change in the wording of principle five because he thinks the committee at University Park should continue to be student-run. He said he would not oppose a change that would apply specifically to Commonwealth Campuses.
Council of Commonwealth Student Governments (CCSG) President Kathleen Streaker said she had not yet decided how she would vote on the changes to the principles.
"I want [CCSG] to remain as nonbiased as possible," she said.
Undergraduate Student Government (USG) President Nick Stathes said he would be attending the meeting, but Triponey had informed him that former USG President Galen Foulke will be the USG representative on the board until the end of the year.
Stathes said he was opposed to the change in the principles.
"I think that democratically elected students should have more of a say than they do now in the allocation of the student activity fee," he said.
Foulke said he will be attending the meeting.
Latta said he would recommend that Student Activity Fee Board send any changes that it approves to the principles to Penn State President Graham Spanier for review.
Triponey will also report at the meeting about her discussion with Spanier concerning a proposed increase in the student activity fee for next year, Latta said. He added that if there is time, the board will begin discussion about a possible increase in the fee for 2008-09.
