Earlier this month, our board published an editorial detailing our reservations and objections to the $3,000 annual fee that the business school has proposed to the Student Fees and Activities Committee. They will defend this proposal before the committee this coming Tuesday, at which time the committee will make a recommendation and pass the matter along for review to the other committees in the process.
Two of our members have also met with the leaders of the business school to discuss the rationale for the fee.
As a board, we want to be clear that our interest in this matter is not in it as a fee from the business school specifically, but rather comes from our interest in fostering open debate.
This is a call for open debate and receptive discussion, where the public has all the facts in hand. We sat by, requesting for the Student Stores bidding proposals to be made public — to no avail — and watched our community express concern, hurt and confusion after the process.
There, the proposals were not public and the public debate and contribution was necessarily limited. Public input and student involvement was restricted on many planes.
With this similarly impactful decision, the documents are public and the meetings are open. Here the very first recommendation regarding the fee will come from a committee of students. Here the financial justifications and projections are public.
And so we believe writing about this, talking about it, and gathering feedback from business school students can only improve this process.
After all of our discussions and analysis in recent weeks, our board still believes this fee should be struck down.
The fee will go directly toward online classes and skills workshops. Indirectly, the business school believes that making these classes online will free up space to admit more students.
