During the long, draining political battle to create a campus community center at USF St. Petersburg, the students who lobbied on behalf of their peers were faced with a choice: go along with the demands of USF system leadership, or lose everything.
It was made clear to them, said the student lobbyists, that without a ballroom to generate revenue through hosted events, and without housing, the University Student Center would not receive essential political or financial support from the USF system.
Rather than throw away a project that had been denied twice by the governor’s veto and had the potential to create an active campus community, they conceded to USF President Judy Genshaft’s and the Board of Trustee’s demands for additional revenue generating spaces.
As a result, students are required to pay a $13.80 per credit hour fee for a University Student Center fundamentally different than the student union they had agreed to support.
This year, the students’ contribution will generate an estimated $1.9 million, and unless changed, will continue through the 30-year life of the bond or until the debt is repaid.
In exchange, the university is performing a $2.9 million renovation of the Campus Activities Center, now the Student Life Center, to house the services and organizations displaced from the USC when it was determined the costs of an all-inclusive building would be untenable.
But after convincing Tallahassee to allow a significant fee increase, some of the student leaders that helped lobby for the building, including then-Student Government President James Scott, started to rethink those concessions.
“Students have expected since the conception of the project that our spaces would reside in the new building,” Scott wrote in a memorandum to the administration on June 2, 2010. “We understand the rationales and pressures behind the change in concept as it relates to the ballroom, student spaces and CAC,” he wrote, but the project needed to be realigned to fit the concept of a student union initially supported by students.
A student union, like the Marshall Center at USF Tampa, acts as a focal point for campus life by converging student organizations, including Student Government and activities boards, with services, such as job centers, computer labs, health clinics and dining.
“I believe that students’ views should be honored as it related to the expenditure of our fee dollars,” Scott concluded the memo. “At this moment, I believe that students desire student spaces to be in the student center—it was never understood among students that the new student center would actually become the ‘food court and ballroom center.’”
Currently, the only non-revenue generating spaces in the USC are the game room, basketball courts and administrative staff offices.
Through USC housing rents, the university expects to make $1.4 million this year, which is consistent with a 100 percent occupancy rate for spring and fall semester. It is not clear if the building will house students during the summer or whether it will be used to host summer camps as another source of revenue, an idea mentioned multiple times by Student Life employees.
Additionally, the contract with Sodexo to operate the dining service guarantees a minimum yearly sales commission of $297,000, and USC staff is expected to generate $83,000 through facility rentals in the first year of operation.
At minimum, the building will generate about $3.6 million from student fees, rents and commissions. As enrollment increases, the amount of revenue through fees will also increase. Service of the $18 million, 30-year bond at a fixed interest rate of 5.54 percent costs $1.33 million, annually.
“We do not expect to have a significant fund balance for this facility,” wrote Communications Director Tom Scherberger in an email, but later clarified on the phone the administration was primarily concerned with short-term viability, considering the risk of over-reaching. The university expects total operating costs, including debt service, of about $3 million a year.
The current financial projections used by the university are conservative, because non-academic construction projects need to be self-sufficient, said former Regional Vice Chancellor of Student Affairs Kent Kelso. “These types of auxiliary buildings are not ever going to be paid for by the state of Florida,” he said.
The removal of student services and student organization spaces from the new building was an economic reality, he said. New construction is double the cost of renovation, and a university can “literally bankrupt” itself if it miscalculates the expansion of services, and, for example, builds more housing than there is demand.
“Had we left that second or third floor on that building,” Kelso said, referring to student organization spaces, “that even with a significant increase in fees, it could not have been built. That’s why there was a negotiation between the students and the chancellor’s office and my office and Dr. Dhingra’s (finance) office where we talked about ‘we can renovate the student activities center at a much lower cost.’”
A survey commissioned by the student government during the 2007-08 academic year indicated that approximately 60 percent of respondents had agreed to pay higher fees in exchange for an increase in services. The creation of a health clinic was the respondents’ top priority, followed by the construction of a student union.
Reuben Pressman, one of the student leaders who worked with the university to lobby for the fee increase, said it was the most successful SG survey in recent history with over 700 responses.
The following fall, the Student Government Senate voted unanimously to support a bill recommending a fee increase specifically to build the student union, but suspended parliamentary rules that would have allowed more time for deliberation at the insistence of Kelso, who said a deadline to present the bill to the campus board and Board of Trustees was looming.
Pressman said he continues to be happy with the outcome, that the renovation provides students with more space, about 3,000 square feet, and provides the university with the housing expansion it desired.
Though some of the student leaders that helped usher in the fee increase are content with the outcome, it is clear the goals of the university were different than the goals of the students.
In late 2009, at the recommendation the office of administrative and financial services, the Board of Trustees changed the campus master plan, combining the student center with a future housing expansion, and removing the student services portion from the new building.
“Combining the two projects i.e. SCP (Student Center Project) and Student Housing and renovating of CAC allows the university to meet its needs more effectively and efficiently,” the proposal concluded.
Without housing, the university would be turning students away, Kelso said, and without an expansion of services, specifically dining and health, the university could not take in a large number of new resident students. All of these services have to fit together, he explained.
By law, activities and service fees, the largest part of the “combined fee,” can only be allocated with the support of Student Government “for lawful purposes to benefit the student body in general.” Without the students’ majority contribution to the USC, it is unlikely the building would have found its funding.
State Sen. Paula Dockery wrote an op-ed published in the Tampa Tribune in April criticizing former USF Polytechnic Regional Chancellor Marshall Goodman for quietly and quickly taking control of the large activities and services fee windfall. She accused Goodman of usurping the Student Government Association’s authority by creating a fee committee stacked with friendly student voices to build and fund a health clinic. In the piece, Dockery wondered if this was an overt grab at funds legally controlled by students.
“Was this a way to fund buildings using student activity fees instead of limited PECO funds?” Dockery asked. “Is this happening on other campuses?”
