By Scott Harvey
Commerce – Students at Texas A&M University-Commerce will soon have the opportunity to vote for or against the implementation of an athletic fee.
The fee is one of the initial recommendations of the University's newly formed Budget Review and Development Council, and was addressed during Wednesday's University Community Update.
Students must approve the fee by a majority vote. The current proposal, if passed, would charge a student $10 for each credit hour being taken up to twelve credit hours each semester, for a total of no more than $120 each semester. Both on and off campus students would be charged.
A&M-Commerce President Dan Jones says if implemented, the fee would not just help one, but a number of university programs and departments.
He says the intention of the fee would be to help Athletics meet some of its funding challenges, which in turn would help create additional athletic services to students. Currently Athletics is funded from a variety of sources, including a substantial portion of student service fees. So this referendum would help replace some of that money, and by helping Athletics other programs and department's whose funds are being diverted into Athletics will be positively affected.
Additional details on the fee and what else the money would be used for is expected to be laid out sometime next week. Officials hope to have the referendum before Thanksgiving. Historically, A&M-Commerce has had students cast their vote through MyLeo. No definite answer has been given as to how the vote would be held, but the University wants to make it so every student has the chance to participate because the referendum, if passed, would affect everyone.
Beginning next week, the complete audio from Wesnesday's University Community Update will be available through our podcast link, located on the left side of our homepage.