Hi Everyone,
A while back, I posted an entry with a break down of your student fees. Since then, I have had several people ask me where I got that information. You can find the breakdown of past, present and future fees at: http://budget.ucdavis.edu/studentfees. I would like to apologize for not making this information more accessible to you all in the first place by posting the links where I found it. I do believe it is worth noting that the information was not easily found at the time, and even as Student Assistant to the Chancellor, I was still not able to gather this information by myself. The link to the fee breakdown was initially pointed out to me by someone from the Office of Communications as they helped me in preparation for an interview with Capital Public Radio (the interview was regarding the walkouts on the first day of class fall quarter). After finding the link, I then had the help of several folks in the Vice Chancellor’s office to explain to me what exactly a referendum was, what money from fees went where, etc. Long story short, it took a lot of people to help me understand just a little bit, and I personally could not have understood many of these things were it not for the privileged access that I am granted as Student Assistant to the Chancellor. This is information that should be easily found by ALL students, not only those that work for administration. As we call for UC and campus transparency, it is important to find the tools to educate ourselves and each other. At the same time, it is also important that we make sure the resources that students are given are useful, and easy for us to navigate. While there are efforts being made to put budget information out in the public (see: http://budget.ucdavis.edu), we are working to make sure that students can understand this information. Speaking only for myself, I am still struggling to understand many of the issues surrounding the budget, and have many questions that the budget website for UC Davis has not answered, yet.
Please contact the Student Assistants to the Chancellor at sac@ucdavis.edu if you have concerns about the budget or any other campus issues, and help us as we work towards a more effective communication of the inner workings of the budget to students. Students deserve answers, and we remain committed to helping find them.
-Allison
