{"id":7373,"date":"2018-03-15T10:38:46","date_gmt":"2018-03-15T18:38:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wou.edu\/westernjournal\/?p=7373"},"modified":"2018-03-15T10:38:46","modified_gmt":"2018-03-15T18:38:46","slug":"student-voices-are-heard-by-the-ifc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/student-voices-are-heard-by-the-ifc\/","title":{"rendered":"Student voices are heard by the IFC"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Sam Dunaway | Sam Dunaway<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The results of the Incidental Fee Committee\u2019s final decision took a turn as the committee departed from their previously established preliminary budget allocations. Notable changes to the budget include a complete funding of both ASWOU and Student Media, which were preliminarily subject to a budget cut, and increased enhancements for Athletics.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">This change of decision, stated by multiple IFC members, was influenced by over 100 students voicing their opinions on the proposed budget via open hearings and feedback forms. Additionally, the IFC chair Eric Frey voiced his opinions in a statement to the rest of the committee showing support for both ASWOU and Student Media, two of the three departments that were proposed cuts in the preliminary budget.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The ASWOU budget was approved for full funding, with a recommendation by the IFC that a referendum be added to the spring term ASWOU elections. This allows the student body to vote on whether they\u2019d like to stay or leave the Oregon Student Association, the main topic of the proposed cut.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The IFC approved fully funding all departments with the exception of a 0.3-percent cut to Student Engagement Operations to reduce the evening hours of the Werner University Center. Enhancement requests from Student Engagement, Student Activities Board, ASWOU and Wolf Ride were granted. Several enhancement requests for the Athletics department were approved by the committee including new helmets and uniforms for the baseball team, hurdles and poles for track and uniforms for the volleyball team.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">After the approval of these budgets, the total Incidental Fee for fiscal year 2019 is $363 for fall, winter and spring, and $167 for summer term. This is a 4.01-percent increase from 2018.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">While increasing the overall fee is difficult for many already struggling students, Frey believes that this can be resolved by an increase in enrollment. \u00a0He explained in a statement to the committee: \u201cIf we all can reach out and bring more enrollments to the university we can continue to fund these areas and hopefully ensure that all IFC funded areas receive the funding required to sustain the community our university has created.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Students made their voices heard throughout this process and ensured that the Incidental Fee Committee made decisions that best represent the needs of Western students. <\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Contact the author at journalnews@wou.edu<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sam Dunaway | Sam Dunaway The results of the Incidental Fee Committee\u2019s final decision took a turn as the committee departed from their previously established preliminary budget allocations. Notable changes to the budget include a complete funding of both ASWOU and Student Media, which were preliminarily subject to a budget cut, and increased enhancements for [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1030,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7373","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"modified_by":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7373","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1030"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7373"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7373\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7373"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7373"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7373"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}