H 36°, L 23° | Tomorrow: 
H 23°, L 9°
It's official.
Come March 28, it will be up to University of Wisconsin students to decide whether to raise tuition by up to $96 per student, per year, for up to 30 years. This would help fund an approximately $153 million project to renovate Memorial Union and build a new Union South.
Shayna Hetzel, vice president of external relations for the Wisconsin Union Directorate, and Adam Robinson, director of the Wisconsin Union Directorate Student Performance Committee, formally announced during a press conference Monday that the organization garnered more than the 1,952 signatures needed to put the referendum on an Associated Students of Madison ballot at the end of this month.
"Almost 8 percent of campus clearly supported funding for this project," Hetzel said. "Almost 3,000 students showed how important the Union is to student life."
Hetzel said the WUD garnered a total of 2,881 signatures, surpassing an internal goal of 2,500 the organization set for itself.
The proposed project includes a remodeling of Memorial Union — which currently does not meet many safety codes put in place after the Union's original construction in 1928 — and a completely new, larger Union South to be constructed by 2010.
If the referendum passes the March 28-30 vote, student segregated fees — an additional payment students pay on top of their tuition — would be raised by $96 and could remain at that level for the next 30 years.
The additional fees would be earmarked to fund the first phase of the project.
This year, segregated fees cost students more than $600 each. And with a $27.5 million segregated-fee budget proposed to Chancellor John Wiley last Thursday — a 10 percent increase from last year — student fees could rise next year depending on whether the chancellor approves it, even if the WUD referendum fails.
And ASM Chair Eric Varney believes the cost of the proposed referendum is too high for students.
"It comes down to a cost issue," Varney said. "Is it really feasible to have students pay $100 a year for this?"
Varney admitted renovations for the Wisconsin Unions is necessary but urged the WUD to seek funding from outside sources, such as alumni and sponsors.
However, Hetzel said the WUD has sought funding from alumni and sponsors and added they would be more receptive to donating money for the project if they knew it had the support of the student body.
"If students pass the referendum, that's going to show potential donors that … it really is a student project," Hetzel said.
IP hash: d123371f
Does Varney ever have anything else to say about the project? How come no one else from ASM ever says anything about it and it’s just him? i heard that he supports the project just not the funding. if true, what does he think can be done better?
IP hash: d123371f
THANK YOU TO EVERYONE WHO SIGNED THE PETITION AND TO ALL OF OUR VOLUNTEERS.
We have taken the first step forward in securing the Union’s future.
Please please please ask us any and all questions or concerns. There is a comment link on our website www.union.wisc.edu/fip or you can email any of the student officers. Janell Wise [email protected] Eric Palm [email protected] Shayna Hetzel [email protected] Jenna Riedi [email protected]
GET INFORMED. GET INVOLVED. VOTE.
IP hash: 347f3fd4
Mr. Pazuniak,
You have done an excellent job over the last 5 weeks of telling readers that the plans to renovate Memorial Union and build a new south campus union rely largely on student money.
How about some details of what the renovation/building would actually entail? Why the Union is moving for changes? What students think about the details of the plan, pro and con? Then, maybe we know what we would be giving money for.
I suggest you get up from the Campus Editor’s desk, stop running the same story (Union + money + Eric Varney doesn’t like money + Shayna Hetzel says money is necessary) and actually report on what is going on here. I’d like to know what people think of the possibilities at a new south campus union.
The Herald is failing to give student voters the full information with which to make an informed decision. We know what the money is. Now tell us what the money is for.
IP hash: 31035890
It’s incredible to me that the Union and the FIP would even consider this referendum at a time like this. Tuition has skyrocketed, increasingly we are seeing the richest of the rich on campus because of affordability concerns. Now, you want to add $100 dollars onto tuition and fees on top of this? Stop pricing students out of an education! Is the improvement really worth it if it means that’s the breaking point for a student and that they are unable to afford their education? I don’t think so. While I don’t deny the Union needs improvements (a New Union South is questionable), now is not the time to do it, not if it means funding the project on the backs on students.
IP hash: 713c8bae
It’s amazing how much misinformation is in this article. First, its $96 per semester; not per year. So that comes to close to $200 per year and that's roughly a 28% increase from this semesters seg fees. Also as was explained to students signing the petition to put this seg fee increase up to the student body, the people who signed the petition do not necessarily support the referendum; rather just want it put forward to the student vote.
I would have hoped that the Union Big Wigs would have learned from last year and been honest with the students. What are they trying to pull?
IP hash: 1f6b78f9
Is that a flat increase in seg fees, or does it change with the number of credit hours a student is taking? For instance, I am only enrolled for 3 credits a semester in grad school, so I only pay a fraction of what full-time students pay. But the way all of these articles have been written, it sounds to me like I’d be paying an additional, flat $100/year. Is that accurate?
You’d think that some of the donors who were paying $1.5 billion into the UW Foundation’s capital campaign would be willing to let some of that cash go to the Unions …
IP hash: 2184596a
“I would have hoped that the Union Big Wigs would have learned from last year and been honest with the students. What are they trying to pull?”
I doubt that the misinformation is the fault of the Union, but instead incompetent research and writing by the Herald. This happens with almost everything they write about. All the information is clearly up on the Union website as well as the language for the referendum. The WUD students have done a pretty good job of providing info, but i’m not surprised that the Herald has once again displayed poor reporting