Administrators are seeking to fund part of a new student writing center through the Student Services Fee, but members of a budget advisory committee say this could violate university policy.
Judith Smith, vice provost for undergraduate education, and members of UCLA Writing Programs recently asked the UCLA Student Fee Advisory Committee for $93,564 in emergency funds. The funds were to cover two-year salaries of peer facilitators to staff a new Student Writing Center, which would replace Covel Peer Learning Labs and would focus solely on composition and shed math and science tutoring offerings.
However, the SFAC, which makes budget recommendations to the chancellor, rejected the request on the grounds that the center is part of the core academic program of the university. That would make the center ineligible for funding from the Student Services Fee, committee members said.
Formerly known as the University Registration Fee, the Student Services Fee is currently set at $972 for each UCLA graduate and undergraduate student. According to the UCLA registrar’s website, revenue generated by the Student Services Fee can be used to cover “services which benefit the student and which are complementary to, but not part of, the instructional programs.”
This includes “educational and career support services,” according to the site.
However, the University of California Student Fee Policy guidelines, which were updated in July 2010, do not include the word “educational” in describing the types of services that the fee can fund.
Ambiguity surrounding these parameters has led to different interpretations of the purpose of the fee.
“There are laws on how money is supposed to be spent in the UC, and we have to make sure we are following the way the funds are supposed to be spent,” said D’Artagnan Scorza, a graduate representative on the SFAC.
Scorza pointed to services like the John Wooden Center, the Arthur Ashe Student Health and Wellness Center, Student Legal Services and the Center for Student Programming as his examples of student services.
State funds and tuition should pay for a new writing center, Scorza said.
“Because it’s an academic program, we can’t pay for it. It’s against regents policies, it’s against (UC Office of the President) policies,” said Scorza, who helped develop the policies for the use of the fee while serving as student regent between 2007 and 2009. “We have to make sure that as a committee we’re doing right by our students, not reducing the services they’ve come to appreciate.”
But in Smith’s view, the writing center is fully in accordance with the “complementary” part of the definition.
“(A peer learning center) is not part of the core. It in no way meets the definition of a core. It’s not required for any classes,” Smith said.
UCLA is the only campus in the UC system that does not use student services fees to pay for a learning center, Smith said, which prompted her to reach out to the advisory committee for funding. Learning centers at UC Riverside and UC Davis are funded mostly by the Student Services Fee.
The Covel Peer Learning Labs at UCLA were fully supported by state funds.
At UC San Diego, the Office of Academic Support and Instructional Services was previously funded by a combination of state funds and the Student Services Fee.
But last year, the office became fully funded by student services fees, according to the request for emergency funds submitted to the UCSD SFAC.
“When the division faced economic troubles, I had to ask my counterparts at other UCs how they fund (learning centers),” Smith said. “We could no longer afford to do (it). I realized in the fall that I had to find a different funding model.”
But advisory committee members said UCLA is following the student services fees policy more accurately than other campuses by not funding the writing center.
“If you stick to policy, we are the ones having the right definition of what should be funded or not funded by student services fees,” said Ray Franke, chair of the UCLA SFAC for the 2010-2011 year. “All the other campuses are actually blurring the line between student services fees and tuition fees.”
Franke said the long-term ramifications of paying the salaries of peer learning facilitators through the Student Services Fee could be severe. He said he sees a “slippery slope” in which student services fees would eventually become the sole source of funding.
Smith and the SFAC have agreed to work together during the summer to find ways to make the new center eligible for funding from the Student Services Fee. As of now, no plans have been presented and the committee has not promised any funding.
Smith also considered funding from outside private donors, although she said she has not begun to look for donors yet. The two-year emergency funds requested from the SFAC were intended to provide time to find private donations, especially large endowments, for the center.
Smith added that finding donors will be a very difficult task and that her priorities are funding scholarships and maintaining the freshman cluster program and Honors Collegium.
The SFAC has formally advised Chancellor Gene Block not to fund the proposed writing center through the Student Services Fee, Franke said, though that recommendation could be overruled.