A dispute between University administrators and the ASUO Senate could cost a graduate teaching fellow his job and put programs at the University Men’s Center in jeopardy next year.
GTF Brian Jacoby, the director of the Men’s Center, said the representatives from the graduate school told him it is unlikely his position will be funded next year. To guard against that possibility, the Men’s Center has asked the ASUO to provide around $14,000 to cover Jacoby’s health coverage and fees.
However, several senators said they did not want to fund the position. Wary of raising the incidental fee students pay each term, many argued that GTF pay should be the administration’s responsibility, not student government’s.
“We need to go to the administration and get them off of their high chairs and get them to fund these things themselves,” ASUO Sen. Derek Nix said.
However, graduate school representatives said the administration’s new budget model was likely to give them less money to fund GTFs assigned to student programs.
The administration stopped funding Jacoby’s position last year. The Men’s Center then requested the funding from the Senate, but that was voted down as well. The position was only saved when the EMU stepped in and agreed to pay Jacoby for one year. However, that was under the condition that the money would not come out of the EMU’s budget again.
“When we did get it, (the EMU) said, ‘Well, this is going to be the last time,’” ASUO Accountant Lynn Giordano said.
Jacoby said his training in counseling psychology is important to programs run by the Men’s Center, such as anger management and anti-violence classes. He said that if he was replaced by an undergraduate, as he said would likely happen if GTF pay was revoked, those programs would suffer.
“It would dissolve the Men’s Center,” Jacoby said.
Others within the Senate said they were wary of the consequences of withholding the funding. Sen. Nick Schultz described the problem as “frustrating” but asked the other senators to consider the consequences if they did not fund the position. Schultz, who chairs the budget committee that funds the program, reassured senators that funding the position would not push the institutional fee above the levels already predicted because other programs have received less funding than expected.
Giordano said the Men’s Center’s GTF will probably be an issue next year’s Senate has to face as well.
“It’s something that’s viewed each year,” Giordano said.
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