THE.UNIVERSITY COLLE.GE. OF THE. FRASERVALLEY STUt>E.NTNE.'wS?A?E.R
It's Not All Love and Unity Here at UCFV The FSA: Institutional
,,1I Jamie
ASKALICE •
sp1cey stuff
Hellewell
Ask just about any current or former UCFV student, and they will tell you that this institution's greatest strength is its teachers and support staff. You will get testimony after testimony about instructors who bend over backwards to serve their students and provide highlevel, personalized education. Almost across the board there is a students-first approach. You know Dr. Jekyl, let me introduce you to Mr. Hyde. The Fctculty and Staff Association (FSA) is the union which represents all the employees at UCFV. Admittedly, its a necessary association with an important function. However, I think its about time for a / close look at this union from a student perspective. I'm convinced that most students would be quite surprised to learn how a large group of altruistic and dedicated individuals can so quickly change shape when they ·oin together in their FSA. In · ct , I suspect many students be a little disturbed. If you you left bullies behind at chool, take a close look SA. e bring you back in time to your grade school cafeteria, waiting in line for lunch. Everyone rushed to the line to try get a good position thereby securing a dessert or at least avoiding getting stuck with an asparagus-peanut butter sandwich. An understandable motivation. Some days you got a good spot, other times you didn't. But there was one group that always got to the front of the line, regardless how late they arrived - the bullies. They could just push their way to the front of the line and no one would stop them on account of their big muscles and hard fists. As a result, if the cafeteria was
What's Goi.n On?
AsTheWorldBurns
Phluff
Bully?
ever short of a particular food item, you could be sure it wasn't the bullies who would suffer. All right, back to the present at UCFV. As most of you probably know, funding to postsecondary education in general and to UCFV in particular has been cut considerably over the past few years. The result has been that our university has had to take measures to either cut spending or somehow increase revenue. Thus the rather contentious budget discussions. Like the cafeteria lunch line, everyone scrambles to get to the front of the line to make sure their interests are protected. Enter the bully: the FSA. This entity exercises enormous influence over how the budget will be balanced and who will get what. Skeptical? Consider this evidence: 1. While UCFV has faced repeated shortfalls in funding over the past few years, salaries of FSAmembers have increased every single year by at least 1.8%. The result is that "salaries" take up a larger and larger piece of a shrinking budget. 2. Tuition, on the other hand, was raised several times in the same time period as a "necessary measure" (prior to the freeze). 3. Even after the freeze, more and more of the budget shortfalls have been made up by students through ancillary fees: the Library and Technology fee, the composition placement test fee, increased parking fees, the computer skills placement test fee, the math placement test fee, etc. I know of a few more myself; I wonder how many others there are that I haven't heard about. Meanwhile, no such fees are charges of faculty or staff, who enjoy private computers, free photocopying, free use of technology, free use of library services, free parking etc., etc. I say "free," but I mean free for them. As students we are the ones who subsidize them. Let's walk back down memory alley, this time we'll
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