On the ballot of the University of Connecticut Undergraduate Student Government elections this year from Tuesday, March 5 at noon to Thursday, March 7 at noon is a student fee referendum, including a question asking students if they support a request for a fee increase from The Daily Campus.
The Daily Campus is a Tier-III organization at UConn, meaning we are supported by student fees. Thus, our annual budget review process requires a presentation to the Student Activity Fee Advisory Committee (SASFAC), including any requests for a fee increase the organization may wish to proceed with. As a part of a petition for a fee increase, a Tier-III organization must provide undergraduate students, who would be paying the fee if approved, an opportunity to vote for or against the proposed increase.
The Daily Campus Editorial Board — and the entire Daily Campus — is asking the undergraduate student population to vote yes for The Daily Campus fee increase. This request comes out of true necessity for our organization.
Currently, The Daily Campus receives $10 per semester for a total of $20 per academic year from each undergraduate student at UConn — a charge that is included within the “student activities” fee within the undergraduate fee bill. We are asking for a semesterly increase of $4, for a total of $28 per academic year. While The Editorial Board understands the financial barriers to higher education and that any fee increase is significant, we also believe it is important to note that compared to the rising costs of tuition, this is not a large amount of money and it will stabilize our organization’s budget for years to come.
Thus, as we ask for student support, we understand we are asking you to agree to paying more money. Please note: this vote doesn’t guarantee a fee increase for us nor an increase to your fee bill. The annual SASFAC review process has multiple parts and the student fee referendum is not the sole decision. Instead, voting yes for The Daily Campus fee increase is a vote of confidence in our work.
With that being said, the individuals that work at The Daily Campus work incredibly hard to provide for our fellow undergraduates. We are funded by you, and our work is for you. Most importantly, The Daily Campus provides comprehensive and extensive coverage of UConn and the surrounding community. No other news outlet in the state is as closely tuned-in to what is going on at UConn. No one else will take the time to thoughtfully cover the news and major campus events that truly impact student life, like Werth flooding, student groups facing harassment, bus services being significantly cut or the ongoing budget cuts. Professional news organizations can not cover such events to the degree we have at The Daily Campus.
There is significant value in having a free press on campus. The Daily Campus is editorially independent from the university, meaning we provide an opportunity for students to push for accountability from the administration. Take away our presence and there will only be UConn Today, which is a public relations outlet for UConn — meaning that what is published in UConn Today is certainly not a 100% accurate representation of the entire picture in Storrs and at our regional campuses. Without The Daily Campus to independently verify it, news coverage of UConn isn’t news — it’s PR.
The Daily Campus uses our student fee revenue to print the paper five days a week and pay our workers. If we cannot afford to do so, we risk missing out on significant, in-demand campus news — case in point, it is impossible to find a spare original copy of our newspaper from the day after the UConn men’s basketball team won the 2023 national championship. Furthermore, all of these are opportunities for students that pay our fee as well – you can join us anytime!
It’s also important to note that we are not the only Tier-III organization requesting a fee increase this year. And of the four organizations requesting a fee increase this year, three of them are media organizations that exist to document and cover student life at UConn. The idea of these organizations struggling financially to the point of not being able to maintain their operations should be concerning for students. As we noted last year, The Editorial Board believes the funding process for Tier-III organizations should be democratized and made less dependent on student fees. However, at the moment, student fees are one of our only available methods for funding our work. At The Daily Campus, we depend upon and appreciate the community’s support.
Please take the opportunity to vote yes for The Daily Campus fee increase, from noon on Tuesday, March 5 to noon on Thursday, March 7 at vote.uconn.edu, to support The Daily Campus and what we provide to students.
Our mission statement reads, “We strive to provide the UConn community with fair, accurate, relevant and editorially independent content, to take on student interests as our own interests, and to provide the best possible environment for students to learn, experience and develop skills related to news media.” We can’t do that without your help on the ballot this year.