Cal State Long Beach students may see another Associated Students Inc. fee approaching this fall, after having a $16 fee increase approved in spring.
As part of a new ASI referendum, the fee would charge students an additional $165 for fall and spring semesters and $124 for summer sessions, University Student Union assistant director of programs Sylvana Cicero said.
The fees would fund renovations to the USU including expanding study and lounge space, replacing outdated technology and increasing the number of electrical outlets, Cicero said.
Cicero said that in 2011, ASI released a campus-wide survey that generated about 12,000 students, faculty and staff responses that identified the benefits and insufficiencies of the USU. She said that another survey was released in April, and it generated over 8,000 responses.
She said that there were “a lot of similar results from the prior one.”
These investigations led students to compare the Student Wellness and Recreation Center – one of the mostly recently built facilities – with the USU, which brought up concerns that the USU was having leaks due to waterproofing issues, she said.
Cicero said that surveys also generated concerns about future demands, given that the facility is over 40 years old.
“When the building was built back in the ’70s, we didn’t have laptops and all that good stuff,” she said. “Now, everybody needs a plug-in somewhere…”
Cicero also said that the student resource center needs to expand its space given that the USU only has room for 31 clubs, and there are over 300 student clubs on campus.
“So, there’s a lot of things that students would like to see changed in this facility, but they also told us that they do like the student union,” she said. “But, we need to start taking care of it and start thinking for long-term.”
During the spring, the USU Board of Trustees, Student Senate and CSULB campus Student Fee Advisory Committee approved the referendum. The student referendum is scheduled for late February 2015.
UPDATE: It has been brought to Daily 49er’s attention that the previous headline, “ASI introduces $165 fee increase,” inaccurately implied that the ASI fee might increase to $225 per semester. Associated Students Inc. Communications Manager Lindsay San Miguel has clarified that the additional $165 fee for students would be considered a University Student Union fee, not an ASI fee. The current USU fee is $179 per semester. This fee would not be implemented for another four or five years, at which point the renovated sections of the USU will be open.
This is idiotic, we can add a Division 1AA Football team along with the three women’s sports for about $86. Kim Tobari and Dr. Haller need to go bad ASI leadership that steers students in the direction of bad policy.
ASI is able to spend large amounts of money to promote its own agenda completely unopposed. The USU does need renovations, but the student officers and the ASI staff (one of whom makes $130,000 a year or so) do not need more raises.
I wish more people participated in ASI and got involved. It mainly benefits those who participate in it as student leaders, and not the student population as a whole.
Why is it that students that actually pay for their tuition are being given the bill for these things while ASI sits and votes for salary increases? Why do they think that they are doing an adequate job representing students when they lied to us in order to get the previous referendum (to cover their salary inceases of about 33%)? Agatha admitted that the fee referendum campaign should have been promoted in a more honest manner, instead of promoting it as a way to “imagine the possiblities”. Their campaign was run off of students’ backs, promoting lies. They plastered posters all over the school with Macklemore’s face on it and called it democracy through the false ideas they had put into student’s minds. ASI needs to refer to their acronym- Associated STUDENTS Incorporated.