CAMP FINISHES
FRIEND ZONE
SUMMER SONGS
The SDSU football team wrapped up training camp last weekend. page 2
How to escape the treacherous friend zone.
John Mayer charmed audiences at Cricket Wireless Amphitheatre. page 6
dailyaztec the
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
w w w. T h e D a i l y A z t e c . c o m
Vol. 96, Issue 3
San Diego State University’s Independent Student Newspaper since 1913
INDEX
sports ... 2
page 3
Tw i t t e r : T h e D a i l y A z t e c
relationships ... 3
entertainment ... 6
TODAY @ STATE Deadline to apply for Spring 2011 admission “Mark Twain: An American Original” Celebrating 40 Years of Women’s Studies
classifieds ... 7
backpage ... 8
Clearing the air around Modern Space
File Photo
Courtesy of Associated Students
An increase in student fees to fund Modern Space has been voted on twice in the past four years. Students were paying $56 per semester into Modern Space even before the referendum was passed last spring.
ANTHONY BRONSON S TA F F W R I T E R
& SARAH GRIECO MANAGING EDITOR
Last March the students of San Diego State voted in favor of the Modern Space referendum, which would increase student fees by $94 per semester beginning in the fall semester of 2013. A total of 4,045 votes were cast, which accounts for 14 percent of the SDSU population. Of those students who voted, 54.4 percent were in favor of increasing fees for the future incoming classes in order to build a new student union. Some of the features of the new Aztec Center Student Union include doubling its size, adding more food venues, building a third story, increasing the amount of conference rooms for student organizations and reducing 40 percent of its energy use. But even after the referendum passed and plans were set in motion to begin moving Associated Students offices out of Aztec Center, the debate regarding the fee increase continued and students were still asking questions. Many of these questions were brought to The Daily Aztec, so two writers followed up with A.S. representatives about many of the issues students asked regarding the new Aztec Center Student Union. The following is what The Daily Aztec uncovered after speaking with current A.S. Executive Vice President
Sean Kashanchi and Aztec Center Director Lynn Cacha.
Haven’t students already been paying for the new Aztec Center Student Union through student fees even before the Spring 2010 referendum was passed? Yes. In the spring of 2006, students voted in favor of a referendum to increase student fees by $56 per semester. The fee was implemented in two different phases. In the fall of 2006, the first $11 of the fee was implemented and the next $45 was implemented in the spring of this year, according to Cacha. “The $56 fee increase was not based on any prior planning of the project, but rather picked as an arbitrary number that sounded good to the Modern Space committee at the time,” Kashanchi said. Kashanchi explained that the money already collected from the past four years of student fees has been rolled over into bonds to pay for the Modern Space project, however the total dollar amount of those fees could not be provided.
If the Spring 2010 Modern Space referendum hadn’t passed, what would have happened to the money that was already set aside for the new student union? In the case that the SDSU student body voted against the Spring 2010 Modern Space referendum, the money already collected for the project would have been spent toward a
renovation and facelift of the current Aztec Center Student Union, including the replacement of much of its plumbing and air conditioning units. “Students would have had to continue to use an Aztec Center that couldn’t support the current SDSU population,” Cacha said. “There would be no increase in food venues, no increased energy efficiency and no increase in the number of conference rooms to cope with the increase in demand from student organizations.”
Why didn’t advertisements for the Modern Space referendum explicitly state that students were already paying for the new student union through student fees? Many advertisements, such as those in The Daily Aztec, only explicitly state that students will be paying $94 per semester. The ads do not mention that students will be paying an additional $94 on top of the $56 they were previously paying toward the student union — bringing the total fees for the Modern Space project to $150 per semester. “With every word on an advertisement costing more money, we had to choose what we thought were the most important things for students to take away from it (the advertisement),” Kashanchi said. However, after speaking with the advertising department at The Daily Aztec, it was discovered that the total price of an advertisement is contingent on its total size, in inches, rather than how many words the advertisement contains.
If students knew they were already paying $56 per semester toward The New Aztec Center Student Union, would they still have voted in favor of the Modern Space referendum last spring? “Yes, we believe students would have still voted in favor of Modern Space because they were informed in all presentations and forums that they were already contributing to the funds for Modern Space,” Kashanchi said. “Even though they already knew all of this, students still voted to increase fees for the project because it was something they wanted.”
The Modern Space project has been postponed before. Is there a possibility this will happen again with the current economic conditions? In the spring of last year, the Modern Space project came screeching to a halt because of the recent recession and the resulting reduced enrollment. Because there were fewer students paying into the Modern Space project, there was a shortfall in funding. As a result, the Modern Space committee proposed a fee increase to the A.S. Council, which resulted in the referendum that passed last spring. With economic and enrollment conditions similar to that of one year ago, students’ concerns of future fee increases are very real. However, Cacha stressed there would be no further fee increases for the Modern Space project.
“There is no chance fees are going to go up for this project anymore,” Cacha said. Kashanchi also confirmed there would not be any further fee increases. “We lowballed on budget and enrollment numbers before the spring fee increase was proposed,” Kashanchi said. “We didn’t want to be in the situation we were in spring 2009 because we wanted to go forward with the project.”
Because construction on the new Aztec Student Union doesn’t begin until next year, will money from our student fees be used to maintain the current Aztec Center? With construction set to begin on the new Aztec Student Union in 2011, some concerns arise as to whether money being funneled into the Modern Space project would be used for the upkeep of the current Aztec Center until it’s knocked down. Kashanchi and Cacha urged that no more money is currently planned to be spent on the current Aztec Center. “All fee spending has been halted on the current Aztec Center until the Modern Space project begins next year,” Cacha said. A.S. has gone as far as to refuse to replace broken door handles around Aztec Center in an attempt to conserve funding for the Modern Space project. “We want to avoid spending students’ money on the current Aztec Center as much as possible,” Cacha said.