SGA votes to tentatively withdraw from Student Federation

After a lengthy debate about an issue that’s been on SGA’s radar for some time, Senators voted Tuesday night to tentatively withdraw USD’s membership and all related financial support from the South Dakota Student Federation.

The Student Federation is an organization whose purpose is to “bring the six regental institutions together. … To come together and collaborate on a bunch of different issues, primarily to influence the (South Dakota) Legislature,” said SGA President Nathaniel Steinlicht.

Among the issues the Student Federation has lobbied for or against in the past several years include tuition freezes, needs-based scholarships, the Good Samaritan Bill and gun restrictions on campuses, Steinlicht said.

The main problem with the Student Federation, Steinlicht said, is “cost, coupled with representation.”

All six of the schools have the same number of votes in the Student Federation, but USD and SDSU together fund 60 percent of its costs and have far larger student populations, Steinlicht said.

“We’ve tried to kind of address this, and there hasn’t really been much push on it,” Steinlicht said.

Another issue is the perceived poor use of funds by the Student Federation, Steinlicht and SGA Vice President Michelle Novak said. This includes money that goes to administrative costs and travel expenses.

The purpose of the vote to withdraw, Steinlicht said, is to force the Student Federation to make changes more amenable to USD’s needs, such as increased representation, lowered costs and better financial management.

Tuesday’s vote dictates that if these proposed changes are made to the Student Federation by Oct. 4, USD will consider staying in the organization.

“We’re hoping that, by withdrawing, we’ll kind of force them to realize that they need us and our students to make their voices be heard,” Steinlicht said. “Make those changes and we’ll be happy to come back in.”

Before the vote to tentatively withdraw, SGA Senator John Slunecka argued for an amendment to the bill which would’ve required a finalized agreement between Steinlicht, Novak and the Student Federation, if it is reached, to be approved by SGA in the fall.

Steinlicht, along with several other senators, disapproved of this idea and said negotiations are going to take a long time, and having to present an agreement to SGA for further approval would be a stumbling block. Slunecka’s amendment to the bill failed.

Robert McLean, executive director of the Student Federation, passed around packets of letters sent between several of the regental institutions regarding the possible withdrawal of USD and SDSU, along with one from state representative Matthew Wollmann and one which from Mike Rush, the executive director of South Dakota’s Board of Regents.

Part of Rush’s letter read: “I think there is no question that this will dilute the voice of the students and ultimately the institutions’ influence in the legislature. A small, conservative state like South Dakota often has a hard time fully appreciating the value of higher education. Competing interests, limited resources, a desire for low taxes and a misunderstanding of how higher education contributes to the general welfare creates significant hurdles when trying to convince policymakers that higher education is a necessary investment.”

The letter went on to say, “A joint organization representing the entire state goes a long way toward bringing a consistent advocacy to the legislature. Without that, legislators can use the disagreements among institutions to do nothing.”

Most of the other letters in the packet advocated for continuing the Student Federation and seemed to indicate a willingness by some of the smaller schools to negotiate on the issues USD and SDSU hope to resolve.

After reading the letters and further debate, the vote to tentatively withdraw from the Student Federation passed SGA by a vote of 18 yes and two no, with one abstention.

SDSU also voted recently to withdraw from the Student Federation in similar fashion to USD, in that the withdrawal is “pending the outcome of negotiations” with the Student Federation, Novak said.

A key bone of contention between SGA and the Student Federation came last year, when the Federation was advocating for a statewide tuition freeze in the state Legislature, which would only be approved if USD’s GAF increase was suspended. Despite USD’s disapproval, the tuition freeze passed and the GAF increase was lost.

This lost revenue cost USD’s GAF about $750,000, Novak said.

“It really set the university back in its growth,” Steinlicht said. “We told them, ‘No, we don’t want a tuition freeze because of our GAF,’ and everyone else was, ‘Well, oh well, that sucks,’ and they all voted to support the tuition freeze,” Steinlicht said.

“It really messed with our students and the services we could provide to our students,” he said.

Between the loss of the GAF and having to pay far more than other South Dakota schools such as NSU or SDSMT, SGA decided to send a message to Student Federation by withdrawing.