Otterbein students will pay a new fee next year in order to increase activities and access to counseling on campus.
This student life fee will be $100 each semester for undergraduates. This fee will be instituted in the fall of the 2014-2015 academic year and will be a permanent fee. Half of the fee will be used for events, organizations and campus activities for students on campus to become more involved. The other half will be used to increase counseling sessions on campus from three to seven or eight sessions.
Vice President and Dean for Student Affairs Robert Gatti wants students to know where their money is going. “It will be transparent about what their money is used for.”
Bylaws for the new representative governance structure have not been proposed and passed by the senate yet. In the Feb. 19 senate meeting, Otterbein senators approved the motion to move forward with further defining a representative government and developing bylaws. A student government component is part of the model, and students on the student council will be in charge of reviewing applications for funding and distributing funds to student organizations.
The board of trustees approved the $100 per term undergraduate fee at their March 8 meeting. Graduate students will pay only $50 per semester for use of the counseling services.
Until the student council and governance restructure are implemented, activities in fall 2014 will come from the Center for Student Involvement and the Campus Activities Board.
A staff member will be hired to work with the student government body full-time and help the students go through student organizations’ applications for funding.
Taylor Delara, a freshman early childhood education major, said that she was in favor of a review process for the activity funding. “I like the fact that you have to apply for it.”
At a Feb. 24 open meeting on the governance restructuring and student life fee, Gatti said that a student government body that has some control over a budget has more influence within the structure.
Several OAC schools have student fees in place. Capital University has a $50 undergraduate student activity fee each fall and spring semester. Students at Marietta College in southeastern Ohio pay a yearly $685 student activity fee and a $240 health center fee. John Carroll University in northern Ohio has a yearly $400 activity fee and a $300 health and wellness fee. Muskingum University students pay a $118 student activities fee each semester.
