In the spring of 2013, Student Senate passed a bill which allowed for the renewal of the McCannel Hall bond fee, which was intended to be used for space exploration and building services on UND’s campus. While that was the legislative intent for those fees, the language of the bill was not updated to reflect that intent.

With the intent of using the collected money to fund a “One Stop Shop” in the Memorial Union, the current Student Government executive team agreed to correct the language of the bill with a resolution and instead came forward with a bill allowing UND to use the fee under various conditions, including that UND set tuition at a rate of 3.72 percent for the next year. Unfortunately, as President Kelley clarified in his letter to members of Student Government, UND does not have the authority to set tuition rates.

Student Government had an opportunity to do two positive things for UND students. They could have reaffirmed the intent of last year’s Senate to provide funding for improved services on campus, in this case, the One Stop Shop. And they could have advocated for maintaining an affordable tuition rate. The executive team’s actions to put both issues into a last minute bill held the entire process hostage, jeopardized student services and possibly hurt the long-term cause for maintaining college affordability.

Prior to last Sunday’s senate meeting, there had been no conversation regarding tuition rates on the senate floor, nor had senators even seen the language in the bill before Friday afternoon. They were told that if the bill wasn’t voted upon this Sunday, the UND Administration would not be able to bring the One Stop Shop proposal to the State Board of Higher Education for their Monday meeting, and the project would be postponed.

Instead of effectively advocating for students and having honest conversation about the cost of college, the executive team chose to make legally impossible demands of the university administration coupled with threats of an audit if they did not follow those conditions.

As a Student Senator, I am disappointed that our executive team and our Student Senate remain blind to the reality that our actions harmed students by risking a valuable service to our campus and strained our relationship with University Administration. I am also disappointed that we were forced into making a decision without information or time. Voting no would have left the proposal unfunded, and voting yes would basically have done the same. The executive team created a lose/lose situation.

I feel we lost an opportunity to foster dialogue and create an atmosphere of trust with our university administrators and, more importantly, our students. By pushing a bill of this caliber through, we stripped students of their voices and robbed them of the opportunity to even listen to the conversation. If we truly cared about transparency and creation of dialogue, we would have held open forums, gotten the facts of what holding tuition would mean and taken the due time to think about how we can move forward together. Instead, we chose to make demands and threats of the administration.

As a final note, it is important to disclaim the idea that a One Stop Shop is a luxury project. It is a way to integrate student services efficiently through a national best-practice. In fact, our neighbors to the south implemented their own One Stop Shop, the Bison Connection, years ago with much success. UND and higher education in North Dakota are constantly being pressed by the state Legislature to more efficiently use their money, and this service would have done just that. Instead, the McCannel Hall Bond fee continues to be collected and the funds sit dormant in our account without a specific need or reason. Holding these funds hostage is irresponsible and inefficient. I can only hope that Student Government figures out how to move forward from the mess we have created.

Kyle Thorson

UND Student Senator