In the latest Graduate and Professional Student Council meeting, GPSC Vice President Dianah McGreehan read a statement from USG President Toussaint Mitchell explaining their reasoning for not fully supporting the proposed increase to the General Student Fee.

“After hearing from our constituents, we’ve noticed a common trend showing no confidence in this proposal,” Mitchell said. “After doing further research, we have discovered that IT is currently operating with approximately $800,000 per semester based on the current students enrolled pay this $7 fee.”

McGreehan said the fee wouldn’t be implemented until next year.

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GPSC decided to table the discussion for upcoming meetings.

In the statement, Mitchell said this additional $3 would provide IT with approximately $3,500 more to budget with.

“This comes to a sum of a million dollars worth of funding that was not explained in detail during the meeting proposal sent by Scott Bridges, Interim Assistant Provost and Chief Information Officer,” Mitchell said.

In the previous meeting, Brione Lockett, student trustee, pushed for joint communication between Undergraduate Student Government and Graduate and Professional Student Council on the proposed increase to General Student Fee; Informational Technology Portion.

Lockett said he wanted joint communication prior to GPSC giving the Office of Information Technology their approval for this $3 increase.

Mitchell said in the statement the senate has yet to make a decision on this proposal, however based on the vague explanation of where the current funding is going and where this additional funding would be going, as well as the conversations that are circulating through the undergraduate students.

“There is more information that must be provided before we make decisions on increasing this specific fee,” Mitchell said.

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Brione Lockett said USG just drafted a resolution that says they would be in support of the fee if three things are provided.

“Those three things were more transparency to figure out what the fees would be used for, as well as a survey sent out to the students to get their input on whether or not it would be beneficial to them and a possible cap because certain students take more than 15 credit hours and some take more than 18,” Lockett said. “So, some certain people would be paying more.”

USG passed the resolution with that added amendment, Lockett said.

Lockett said this will be addressed in the December Board of Trustees meeting.

“I’m going to make sure that both constituency groups are heard,” Lockett said.

After tabling the discussion, Jordan Maddox, Vice President of Graduate School Affairs, said the university uses Hobson Radius as the program to apply to go to school here, graduate or undergraduate.

However, switching to a program called Slate will save SIU $60,000 in two years for the graduate and professional students.

“The savings won’t start until next year,” Maddox said. “Slate is a better program and it’s cheaper, so it’s better all around.”

Staff reporter Emily Cooper can be reached at ecooper@dailyegyptian.com or on Twitter at @ecooper212.

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