First Volley: Taking Aim at Dr. Aloia's Tuition Increase

Just a starting point...
I don't expect to convince a lot of people that raising tuition can be avoided every year, and I'm not convinced of it entirely myself. A certain increase (and by this I mean the rate of inflation) in tuition is likely to be required every year in order to keep pace with the changes in our economy and to keep the lights on and the water running. So when I am critical of tuition increases, I don't really consider anything up to a 3.7% or so increase to be included in that but if individuals care to debate that rate also I have a view on it.

Why increases always hurt students
Tuition increases, no matter how small they are always impact students. This is a concept a lot of administrators in particular do not understand, and even some of our student representatives do not fully grasp. When you consider a cost/benefit analysis, whenever you make things more difficult to do (in this case attending a university), less people will do it. Now the way to skirt hurting students is to claim that the majority of students will not be impacting, and insist that the burden being shifted to a smaller group is the best thing for everyone. If you ice the cake with the fact that these students supposedly are more able to handle the burden of the increase, its a rather well packaged lie. The best way to gain support in a constituency for a controversial plan is to divide that constituency into groups and cause those groups to turn on each other. As students, we must be united in solidarity with other students in most matters and particularly when it comes to tuition. All students are impacted by tuition increases because even if the vast majority of students who receive financial aid will never really feel the impact of that increase, our friends and classmates who receive little aid certainly will. Let us not forget that while the rest of us may not pay those costs upfront, we will pay them eventually when our loans are due. We're better than those who would pass the buck onto us, so we must never pass the buck onto other students. As a member of policy, the Student Government Association must never endorse an increase that students will not receive direct benefit from on the basis that the increase will only impact a small number of students. I will never support that argument as your representative to the Board of Governors, and I will call out any administrator who attempts to use it.

Increases are a cowards way out
Increases in tuition show a variety of things about an institution, but for Concord University it shows we're not as dedicated to institutional improvement or creativity as we ought to be. For years Dr. Beasley was told to create a Vice President for Development in order to search for grants and other sources of revenue for the university. I know, because I told him on more than one occasion that we were light years behind our peers in institutional development and the costs were being directly passed on to students in the form of tuition increases. Now, Dr. Aloia has decided to fill the position by naming a Vice President for Institutional Development but has given him (Greg Quick) no clear mandate for grant searching or alternative revenue sources. I think Mr. Quick is an excellent choice in the short term as we need a person to fill the position, but we must look quickly beyond him and fill the position via a national search to really show our commitment. The Board of Governors has stated several times over the last few years that the institution cannot continue to rely on students to fund the university, but each time it has voted for an increase. Dr. Aloia likes to say that colleges and universities were once state supported, and now have moved to state assisted and will eventually move to state endorsed. While this very well may be true, it shows us that we have to work as an institution to make sure we're able to retain our financial stability and viability in the future. It is cowardly to return to student wallets every year for more money and refuse to dedicate ourselves to the goal of alternative revenue. It shows narrow mindedness and shortsightedness in running a university.

Dr. Aloia never takes personal responsibility for his decisions
Dr. Aloia is the higher education equivalent of a used car salesman. He's an individual that will use any rhetorical technique he knows in order to tell you a nonsensical argument or talk you in circles long enough to distract you from your question. But when it comes to decision making, he's the Tim Tebow of Concord, passing down field the responsibility that comes with the job. When it was time to increase tuition, he did not propose a single increase and put his support behind it. Indeed, he admitted he had almost no preference when it came to the increases, and it was shocking to see him work his way out of the questions I asked him during our meeting. He proposed 4 different increases, and let the Board of Governors make the decision almost blindly. When it comes to actual policy implementation, he passes it along to his vice presidents to both develop a policy, and then implement it. That isn't really leadership at all, its delegation of power. At least Dr. Beasley took a stand when it came to decisions (even if he rarely made any) and took responsibility for them. When you debate Dr. Aloia's ideas, he'll constantly skirt the issue and then defer to the individual he's delegated the responsibility to, to take the heat for the decisions. Now that is the type of leadership we don't need at a university and the type that certainly does not deserve a 3 year contract extension.

8.76% doesn't lead to increased services for students...unless we propose them
Each year the SGA makes the argument that to justify even a single percentage point's worth of an increase students should see an increase in services, and each year the administration doesn't understand the point. A great deal of student services are promoted or provided by the Student Government Association in one way or another, and without institutional support these programs cannot be the best of quality. Consider that the gameroom renovations, the 24 hour library, the improved website, the fitness center all were proposals that came from the SGA in one form or another and of those only a small percent were funded from increases. I have heard that the Student Sponsored Tutoring program will recieve a dedicated budget from now on thanks to a presentation by myself and other SGA members, but this again returns to the SGA promoting programs and not administrators. The proposal brought by former President Prince and being considered by President Yeager to keep the library open longer is one that may be funded by a split with SGA funds! Its absurd to think that the SGA should have to split the cost of services that other universities always provide, and its a slap in the face for Dr. Aloia to present a large tuition increase and back that up with almost no service changes. Its shameful, and Dr. Aloia should reconsider the direction he is leading the university in.

Our Duty: To fight increases at every level with any means
We as students and student advocates must understand that every increase that is approved means another student who cannot return, or another student who is priced out of coming to Concord. For this reason, we must accept the responsibility of fighting increases that will be proposed each year. We've got to organize at the local level and convince vice presidents and department directors to find ways to cut costs and become more efficient and effective in running their programs. Campus offices for example need to stagger their lunch hours rather than having all of their staff leave at once. We must organize at the university level and convince Board members to require annual reports on alternative revenue projects and benchmarks towards keeping tuition low. We've got to organize at the state level by capturing the chair of the HEPC Advisory Council and focusing the efforts of representatives from all colleges and universities in the state on keeping costs low and keeping students in school. We've got to finally keep legislators updated round the clock on measures they can take to rebuff the trend of abandoning state colleges and convince them that investing in the future of higher education is investing in the future of West Virginia.

If we do not work together to find common sense solutions to these problems, we will be divided and we will see increases each year that are beyond our means. We've been given the opportunity, the information and the tools to disrupt the plans of higher education theft, now lets put that to work in making sure it never happens again. I'm dedicated to that cause and I hope you'll sign on to it too.

Founding

Let me begin by thanking Chris Slater for the inspiration to create a blog covering my thoughts and ideas surrounding the various events at Concord University. His blog has brought about a lot of discussion related to SGA issues and campus events, and that is a very positive thing. I intend to use my blog to serve a somewhat similar purpose, and I will use it to report on issues related to my positions as Student Representative to the Concord University Board of Governors and Representative to the West Virginia Higher Education Policy Commission's State Advisory Council of Students. Additionally, I will from time to time comment on matters as a legislator in the Student Government Association but I hope that happens only every so often.

I think the greatest thing we can do as students is hold our university to the highest of standards. In the first place, as students we are both consumers of a product (Higher Education), and members of our campus community. As such, we have to approach the majority of issues that arise from both of those perspectives. We cannot afford to be laissez-faire students in an environment when we are constantly at odds with faculty and administrators. We are not at odds because we want to be, but because that is the natural course of things. Administrators for the most part are primarily concerned with the survival of the college, and student representatives are primarily concerned about the survival of fellow students. Faculty members are concerned about promoting their own constituency, and while they are at times stronger critics of administrators than we are they will side with them far more often than they will side with us. That being said, we must always organize and "arm" ourselves with new knowledge and information to take our opponents to task. A free and open student press in any form is a way to help achieve that goal, and I hope this blog will serve a small role in that.

I want to conclude this small founding post with just a few words about my overall attitude and philosophy on student advocacy. I have absolutely no fear of higher powers, and I am not intimidated by individuals of authority. I have been duly elected by members of the Concord University student body to represent them both at the institutional level, and at the state level to influence higher education policy. How could I as a representative help my constituents if I did not constantly work to hold people accountable? I will work to build bridges and networks of support with my fellow board members, and I will reach out to state and local officials to achieve my policy goals. However; when the time comes to point the finger of blame or occasionally chew out a vice president I will be more than happy to accept my responsibilities. I hope I can be of service.