Student government blows over $8000 on lavish luncheon… and guess who’s footing the bill
Keep calm and feign ignorance
After a tuition and fee hike of 6 percent at UMass, the Student Government held a Women’s Leadership Conference with a breakfast and lunch bill of $8,300 last Sunday – which will be paid for by student-fee-funded campus coffers.
Now I’m all for women’s leadership, but I think these guys were missing the point.
Campus finances are tight at the moment, but that would be much easier to empathize with if the school weren’t so frivolous in spending the only money we currently have. One Boston Globe article called the UMass system “One of the most underfunded in the country.”
Current President Meehan is campaigning for more support for the UMass system via taxpayer dollars to ease the financial burden on students and their families. And yet, while state financial support continues to shrink, UMass finds time to spend thousands on… lunch.
Actually eating your tuition
When confronted about the expenses, Sïonan Barrett, the student body president of the UMass SGA, claimed that the “receipts were wrong”, but was unable to provide alternative receipts as proof.
That’s right Sïonan:
Remember the e-mail the SGA sent out earlier this week in support of tuition-free public college, cancellation of all student debt, and a $15-per-hour minimum wage for all campus workers?
Yeah. Us too.
Angela Lussier: Keynote speaker for the event / Alum, Business coach, and Author
Not only was the food expensive, but there was a $5,000 honorarium paid to the keynote speaker. Now I’m sure she was wonderful – a conference on women’s leadership can never be a bad thing.
However, if UMass is going to keep asking its students to pay higher tuition, it is going to have to own up to the fact that it is spending its money in the wrong places. Or rather, spending OUR money in the wrong places.