Student body president Kaeden Kelso is on a consolidation subcommittee and says he is welcome to input about student involvement recommendations. Courtesy of Ysatis Jordan
By Amy Diaz
With a consolidated university might come a single student government constitution, as well as a uniform Activity and Services fee for all students, regardless of their campus.
These are some of the recommendations the consolidation subcommittee for student involvement is making.
The committee is headed by Dwayne Isaacs, director of student life and engagement at USF St. Petersburg, and Danielle McDonald, an assistant vice president and dean of students on the Tampa campus.
The committee includes Gary Manka, the adviser for student government at the Tampa campus; Kimberly Mones, director of student engagement at the Sarasota-Manatee campus; and Winston Jones, the associate dean of students at the Tampa campus.
The three student government presidents from each campus are on the committee as well: Kaeden Kelso from St. Petersburg, Michael Klene from Sarasota-Manatee, and Moneer Kheireddine from Tampa.
Their recommendations will directly affect students and the way they get involved at school once consolidation goes into effect.
Kelso says the committee members are still discussing the details of the recommendations, and that right now they are primarily focused on the “big picture.” The committee is also working with a finance committee that will affect the details of the recommendations.
The three student government presidents created a presentation to explain the recommendations and potential plans for student government.
The student governments on each USF campus function autonomously from one another. Under consolidation, the recommendation is to have one Student Government Constitution for the USF Tampa, Sarasota and St. Petersburg campuses.
The three student body presidents will work with their student president advisory boards to draft the new constitution.
“Once it’s drafted, it will go to senate, and then it will be voted on by the student body,” Kelso said. “So, at the end of the day, they will decide if they want it or not, and then we will go back and change it until it is approved.”
Each campus is recommended to have its own statutes, rules of procedure, and standard operating procedures. The constitution will create the basic organizational structure, but the individual campus procedures will give specific details for each campus.
“All three presidents and student governments want to make sure that each campus maintains some level of autonomy,” Kelso said. “We don’t want to be completely 100 percent the same. It comes down to autonomy.”
The potential plan outlined in the presentation suggests having one USF system Student Body President with campus-specific student body presidents underneath. Kelso said this isn’t set in stone, and that the committee is still discussing it.
The recommendations for programming and student organizations reflect the desire to widen access to all USF students, regardless of their campus.
Each campus provides programming that reflects the student population and available resources. The committee recommends that campuses continue to host signature programs unique to their campus, but make participation available to students from any campus.
To ensure equitable access, the committee recommends that the USF Bull Runner, the university’s bus system, establishes a continuous route between the three campuses.
“We are trying to make a way where the access amongst all campuses is there, so you can access each of the campuses easily as a student organization or club,” Kelso said. “After consolidation, we would be one USF. We would all be USF students, so a student from the Sarasota-Manatee campus or the St. Pete campus should be able to utilize resources and organizations in other campuses.”
One challenge listed on the recommendation is that programming is offered at each campus by different entities with different resources. The committee also notes that its recommendations may be impacted by fee distribution.
The committee recommends that the Activity and Service Fees for each campus be adjusted to a rate that is the same for all students, maintaining no less than the current budget for each campus or the overall combined budget for all three campuses.
“We want to find a way that betters everybody equally so no one campus will get a better deal than the other,” Kelso said. “We have been working closely with the finance committee to figure out what [the fee] will look like, but currently there are no formal recommendations.”
Asked if there would be a meeting for students to discuss the committee’s recommendations, Kelso said he couldn’t think of one but would “definitely present that to the chairs of the committee to possibly have a student forum.”
“Those would be wonderful to have,” he said.
The Implementation Committee and Task Force must submit consolidation recommendations to the USF Board of Trustees by Feb. 15. The USF Board of Trustees must adopt an implementation plan and submit it to the Board of Governors by March 15.
