Students are entitled to free tickets to incidental-fee sponsored events, but the ASUO Executive, the ASUO Student Senate and the EMU Ticket Office are each, to varying extents, unwilling to educate students about the Senate-created rule. Instead, efforts are under way to abolish the policy.
According to Student Senate Rule 13.7: “Under no circumstances shall any incidental-fee paying student … be denied the right to participate in or attend an activity or event, fund-raiser or otherwise, that is sponsored in whole or in part by an incidental-fee funded (Programs Finance Committee) Program based solely on that student’s inability to pay the requisite donation or admission charge.”
China Night, Japan Night, Utsav and “The Vagina Monologues” are examples of events this year that have fallen under the rule. However, no free tickets were given by the ticket office to students, Director of Ticketing Services Mary Barrios said.
ASUO President Maddy Melton said she doesn’t think many students know about the rule, and she said she will not do anything to educate them because she wants to see the rule changed.
ASUO Student Senate President Ben Strawn agrees the rule is obscure, but he said neither the Executive nor the Student Senate has the responsibility of educating the student body about the rule.
“It’s a (Student) Senate rule and I don’t think that the Executive necessarily has a responsibility to communicate it,” Strawn said, adding that students’ lack of awareness about the rule is a problem. “I think if more people knew about the rule we’d have serious pressure on us to change it. And even now we have a substantial amount.”
The ticket office isn’t taking steps to educate students about the rule, either. Barrios said it’s ASUO’s responsibility to tell students about the rule, not the ticket office’s. Barrios said she will not post a sign about the rule.
Barrios said she construes the rule to mean students who cannot afford a ticket to an event cannot be denied one. She said it’s not the ticket office’s role to ask each student purchasing a ticket whether he or she can afford it.

Tracking down tickets
The rule was created about nine months ago by the Student Senate, but the ticket office was only made aware of the rule in early February. ASUO Student Senate Ombudsman Mike Sherman met with Barrios to inform her of the rule after an Emerald article revealed the ticket office was not aware of it.
Sherman, who was on the committee that created the rule last year, said it’s difficult to educate the general public about the rule, outside of media coverage.
Sherman said the Student Senate has worked to educate student groups and the ticket office about the rule. He said Strawn brought up the rule at a Feb. 5 Programs Council Meeting, where representatives of each fee-receiving student group were present. Also, the Student Senate is discussing the rule with ASUO controllers so controllers can “help remind (student groups) when they are putting on events.”
But even if a student were aware of the rule and requested a free ticket from the ticket office, Barrios and Sherman said other rules prevent the ticket office from giving away a free ticket. The ticket office will not
provide free tickets, and will instead refer the student to the sponsoring group for a ticket, Barrios said.
Early in February, multimedia design undergraduate Dylan Wiggins said he requested from the ticket office a free ticket to a production of “The Vagina Monologues,” which was partially paid for with incidental fees. He said he was denied a ticket. Wiggins then contacted Sherman, and they both went to the ticket office, where Wiggins was directed to the ASUO Women’s Center.
Wiggins said he never got there because he decided the ticket wasn’t worth the trouble.
ASUO Accounting Coordinator Jennifer Creighton-Neiwert said she doesn’t think referring a student to the sponsoring group would make it difficult for the student to get a free ticket. The ticket office has a list of student-group contacts that ticket office employees can give to interested students, she said.
Strawn agreed.
“Most of the groups that are putting on programming have an office,” he said. “So, I would think it would be pretty easy (to get a hold of them).”
Barrios would not comment on whether she thought the process makes it difficult for students to acquire a ticket, pointing out it hasn’t been an issue because, except for one student, nobody has requested a free ticket.

Rolling back the rule
Many student-government officials are concerned that if students take advantage of the free-ticket rule, student groups will lose an important source of funding.
Melton said a reduction in ticket sales could force student groups to run major deficits because many rely on fund raising to survive.
“I think the intention of the rule is a good intention, but I don’t think it’s practical or feasible for groups,” Melton said. “Groups have to be able to count on revenue.”
Melton said paying for tickets is fair because without those funds, groups would need more incidental-fee money for events. That would mean members of the student body, many of whom aren’t interested in the event, would be forced to pay more through student fees.
Strawn said he’s also concerned that if the fund-raising ability of student groups is cut, they’ll be forced to ask for more student fees or cut services. He said there needs to be a balance between funding a group through fees and allowing it to raise its own funds through ticket sales.
Friday, the Student Senate took one of the first steps to abolish the rule. At a Student Senate Rules Committee meeting, the group decided to draft new language that would negate the current rule and require fee-paying students to pay to enter events.
Sherman expressed concern at the meeting, saying that charging students to enter events is double charging them, and ticket costs would prohibit some from attending the event.
ASUO International Student Advocate Takenori Momiyama said groups that haven’t had events yet are expressing concern that the rule will force them to do extra fund raising to make up for the loss in ticket income.
The committee still needs to vote on abolishing the free-ticket rule before sending it to the full Senate for approval. The language then would need to be approved by the ASUO Constitution Court, Strawn said. He said no changes will take place before next year.