The Facts: The Student Senate ratified a bill Wednesday to facilitate its use of $3,000 in student fee funding to rebrand its image. Any of the allocated money it doesn’t spend on rebranding will be returned to its surpluss fund.
Our Opinion: The student body was fleeced of $3,000 on Wednesday. Even the thought of spending student fees on rebranding is completely inappropriate in this budgetary climate.
Rebranding “is the process of giving a product or an organization a new image, in order to make it more attractive or successful.”
The Student Senate passed a resolution Wednesday authorizing the organization to spend up to $3,000 of student fee money on rebranding.
The language of Finance Bill 19 states that the “Rebranding Initiative plan… will improve the image of Student Government across campus.”
This bill is nothing more than an attempt to spend surplus student fees Student Government has accumulated over the last several years. The language of the bill doesn’t indicate how this spending will aid students; it looks extremely self-serving.
Student Body President Jim Ceresnak clarified the bill by saying that it was more of a “visibility and accessibility act” more than anything else. He said Student Government was actually putting down a commitment toward getting out amongst students and engaging them on important issues such as academic advising and class enrollment limitations.
If this is the case, then Student Government should have said as much in the legislation it drafted and ratified.
And if its intention was to increase the student body’s awareness of the organization, how does that require $3,000. The preachers in the Brickyard increase Jesus’ visibility by belting out biblical stories. Perhaps the senators should take turns standing in the Brickyard reading the legislation in which they spend student money.
Students need to know more about the advocacy and student appropriations role Student Government plays on campus, most people would agree with that.
It is perverse, though, to spend student money to go and talk to students about the ways it spends their money.
Ceresnak said students could trust Student Government will be a responsible steward with the funding; even indicating that it might spend as little as $500, returning the rest to students.
That’s not the point though; the bill gives the impression that Student Government is all about its members, and them alone. The intention of the project was to make it more inviting and accessible; the bill sends the opposite message.