H 32°, L 7° | Tomorrow: 
H 17°, L 4°After months of crescendo, the campaign to fix up the Natatorium was definitively shot down by an unprecedented student turnout in the referendum last week.
And while we’re quite pleased with the voters’ wisdom in this situation, for reasons we’ve already articulated, there’s still a critique to be made of the way the NatUP campaign was waged.
At this point, many students are likely still unaware that the “grassroots” campaign for NatUP, run primarily by fresh-faced and enthusiastic SERF and Nat employees, was far closer to Astroturf. The campaign was organized and funded with $30,000 from UW’s own Recreational Sports, the arm of the university that would stand to benefit from students footing the extra $54 in segregated fees each semester for the new workout palace.
Besides the influx of big university spending to push a student referendum that would essentially raise tuition, there are a few more objections to be raised. For one thing, the money came from the sticker students buy to take yoga and strength classes at the Nat and SERF. Did you remember asking for that little neon sticker to also buy you a campaign pushing you to effectively raise your tuition?
For another thing, the money was spent in an almost reckless fashion. What student-run, grassroots campaign spends thousands to make a flashy website and a PowerPoint presentation? Wouldn’t most truly student-run campaigns whip those things up on their own?
Imposing any kind of overarching campaign finance restrictions on ASM elections would be precariously tricky and nearly impossible to enforce, but after the NatUP experience and the similarly powerful campaign to build a new Union South that was rammed through a few years ago, something needs to be done.
Even if funds for pushing student referenda can’t be limited or controlled — as they should be — they can and should at least be disclosed. If the mechanism exists to slap an ASM logo on every bit of seg-fee-funded advertising or materials, the same should be true for these campaigns. That way, if the campaign is indeed being underwritten by those who stand to benefit on the students’ dollar, at least it’s more easily distinguished from a genuinely student-run and grassroots effort.
While we’re consoled by the fact that in this case, big money didn’t buy the student vote — a huge credit to the intelligence and logic to them — this board sees trouble coming. ASM should take a step now to reign in this kind of campaign, before we have to pay for any more propaganda…to be used on us ourselves…to make us pay more…
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This newspaper’s coverage of the NatUp incident disgusts me. The least you could do would be to have some journalistic integrity and know when to quit. You, along with NoSegFees, spread blatant lies during the campaign and have negatively impacted the student body.
Running a school is a business, just like any other. Your diploma? Its worth is determined by a school’s reputation and the intelligence of the student body. Wisconsin has amazing academic programs across the board. But how do we attract the best and brightest? Well, one way is to make sure we don’t have decrepit, crumbling buildings like the Nat and Union South.
Madison is one of the finest public institutions of education in the country. We should act like it and create a campus and school that we can be proud of. 50 bucks a semester is a small price to pay.
I’m pretty sure no one else said it, so I will; Wisconsin is already one of the best deals in education. You are getting more than what you are paying for. If you can’t take 50 bucks out of your alcohol/drug money for the semester and put it towards future generations of Badgers, go to some fourth rate community college. Your writing skills are probably more suited to a school like that anyway.
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Top graduate programs around the country use Wisconsin’s low stipends and high seg fees against us. Raising seg fees another 10% would have just hurt UW’s competitiveness even more.
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I did not know that… interesting.
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This is absolutely true. Do you realize that a typical grad student will pay 10% of his/her TA salary in seg fees? I’ve not come to complain about that here, but merely to emphasize that this definitely works against Wisconsin-Madison when it is competing for the best talent. A tuition waiver here is not equal to those elsewhere, particularly when prospective students often realize that these fees have risen 78% in the last six years and are likely to continue to rise in the future.
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Stop whining about seg fees, they are paid by every student because every student has the same opportunities to take advantage of the services offered. If you want to opt out, make a push to make that happen.
Also- stop whining about the 10%. You pay 1.5% to your almighty TAA to pay for an office, pay staffing,and qhat else…complain to the Chancellor that you want to be seg fee exempt? Take that 1.5% and convert it apply to the Nat and maybe then you will have something that is actually useful.
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If you think insinuating that the entirety of the campus is going to use their 50 bucks a semester for 30 YEARS for “alcohol/drug money” is going to help your argument, then you’re out of your fucking mind
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I wonder how much of that 30 grand went to designing that fancy NatUP logo. If you are dedicated to working out, you don’t need nice facilities to motivate you to go. Just do it. Or don’t do it. But saying you won’t work out because the facilities are not pristine is a joke. My advice to the NatUP crew: go watch “Dodgeball”
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Hi, I’m a dead horse, beat me.
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Hahahaha
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this would have been a million times funnier if you put Barbaro as your name.
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Getting a plenty of headline mileage out of “Not = NAT” pun. Good for you guys.
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^^^^^ YES
And enough, already. Yeah, you guys are having trouble finding non-morons to write in your opinion pages, but enough about the Nat already. We know what this board thinks and are still having a hard time caring.
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haha you over at the herald have nothing better to do than think up a bunch of lies?
Last week, the students had a chance to improve The University of Wisconsin-Madison�s recreational facilities for future generations, and it failed. Why you ask? Because of our biased media, student government and the lies going around from No New Seg Fees. Every other election, the Herald has published side by side opinion articles (and stated facts), except for this campaign. Students were not well informed about this issue. If they would have known the Nat WILL NOT be built without an increase in segregated fees, and construction costs are at an all time low making it a better investment for our future, the outcome would have been different.
I watched the No New Seg Fee�s immature tactics first hand. STUDENTS: we let a bunch of TA�s tell us how to vote and ignored a decade worth of complaints. In a recent article No New Seg Fees representative Peter Rickman said �the allegations sound like �sour grapes.� He said No New Seg Fees did not need to resort to lies to perpetuate their message and NatUP 2010 never confronted the group with those allegations.� Is this a joke? It�s quite funny because I watched your group mess with NatUp signs and chalking, not to mention I had to correct many people in my classes about the lies coming from your group. How does it feel to win because of the lies you told? You should be humiliated knowing how far behind you just put our campus, its going to cost students a lot more in the future.
If more students went to the debate, you would have seen how professional NatUp was. No New Seg Fees were clearly unprepared and showed disrespect during the entire debate and even quoting movie lines as a joke. Also if you would have been at this debate you would have known, the University can not and will not fund this project.
No New Seg Fees asks: how can we spend money on a new gym when education funding is limited? This question is just a scare tactic, and our education funding is an entirely separate issue (which was also explained during the debate). Segregated fees and an increase in tuition are two separate arguments, but No New Seg Fees ensured this distinction was blury. NatUp was created to improve our facilities by the students for the students, not involving the University�s educational funding at all. But No New Seg Fees made a lot of people think otherwise.
A Herald reporter finally got it right, Kevin Bargnes said, �By the mid 2020s, students could be paying well over $220 a year for exercise facilities � probably more like $300-$400 given the fact that the SERF won�t be cheap.� If an article like this would have been published before the vote, maybe students would have a better opinion, instead the Herald stuck to negative, biased opinion articles. The Herald should be ashamed of the way they presented this campaigns information, and now students have to pay for it and they will for many years to come. Bargnes calls himself a �muckraker� even when his articles are corrected by truthful comments, and then he uses those comments in other articles, way to do your research buddy, you really messed up this time. Why didn�t No New Seg Fees propose an alternative funding option? They certainly failed to tell people NatUp was seeking private donations, and would have continued to if the referendum passed. Did your group not understand that it would be a MAXIMUM of $54 per semester, because alternative options were still being looked at. To make it clear, the state can only contribute to the educational purposes of the Nat, but No New Seg Fees failed again to get that message across.
Let this be known, our $60 million building today will cost over $100 million in the future because construction costs will continue to rise. Not to mention, we all pay $53 in segregated fees for an ASM bus pass that a lot of us don�t use. Also, there�s going to be new Lakeshore dorms going up. State of the art facilities keeps Madison on top, and will make us look much better as alumni. Next time you go and visit another university (especially those in state) make sure to check out their recreational facilities, and you just might vote differently next time. Lets just go back to avoiding our recreational facilities when tours are given for potential incoming students, we�re all embarrassed.
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You know, I am sick of my seg fees going up every year for things I don’t use. If the person in the first comment wants the Nat fixed up, start a fund raising campaign and do it yourself, just leave my money out of it.
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Better not cry cause the plan was a failure Go to the serf it’ll be your new savior. Take those reds shirts and toss em in the trash Now kneel right on down and land a kiss on ma ass! OH!!!
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I’ve been hearing a lot that this what student’s want and need, and what will attract future students to our campus. Apparently students value so-so facilities and lower seg. fees. Don’t tell us what we want, that insults intelligence. And as for the increasing construction fees? Yes, inflation….are you familiar with how that works ? Wages usually go up too. And just in case you meant non-recession times, I’m sure there will be another recession to start construction in the future.
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Relative to other top public schools around the country the tuition here is relatively low. Look at schools like UCLA, UC-Berkeley, Michigan and Virginia not to mention all the private schools which dwarf the tuition here so please don�t talk about this school not being able to attract students of top talent because when you look at all the alternative schools the tuition is much higher. As to NatUp it was a chance to improve this campus and make it better and have something that would maybe attract students that would otherwise go to one of the other top institutions. Well like someone above mentioned it�s a business and the more you invest in it and the better you make it the more you get out of it. So no one should have any complaints about raising seg fees by $54 for the benefit of future students and improving the school. It�s not that much to ask for and the tuition is still lower than in top schools anyways. If you really have an issue with paying a little more to make the school better well then go to school somewhere else because for your stupid cheap self there is more talent that would still apply to school here because it would still be the cheapest top school to go to. To keep a school competitive and in the top tier you need to spend a little more on top professors and new buildings and the only way you can do that is by raising new fees and tuition so good luck to the morons out there who think that this school can remain in the top tier spending less than its counterparts.
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“As to NatUp it was a chance to improve this campus and make it better and have something that would maybe attract students that would otherwise go to one of the other top institutions.”
Interesting. I was unaware that these top students would mostly be in lakeshore dorms or just really love swimming.