USAC referenda endorsements

It may look expensive, but this year’s Student Programs,
Activities and Resource Complex referendum provides a last-chance
opportunity to approve centralized services and upgraded campus
facilities that will benefit all students in the future.
Undergraduates should approve the measure.

The SPARC referendum, which was approved this year by a
student-majority committee, would remodel Men’s Gym to
include space for undergraduate and graduate outreach programs, the
Women’s Resource Center and other student services. It would
also add a wing to the John Wooden Center for lockers and showers,
and another where Student Psychological Services could be
relocated. The weight room and other recreational areas would also
be expanded significantly.

The additional $28 per quarter fee would not be assessed until
the complex is complete, during the 2004-2005 school year, but it
must be approved this year for the project to take place at all.
Funding allocated by the Federal Emergency Management Agency to
renovate parts of Men’s Gym that were damaged in the 1994
earthquake must be used this year. If SPARC is rejected, seismic
construction on Men’s Gym will take place anyway, but the
full renovation will not.

The programs affected by this referendum serve everyone from
graduate students to undergraduates, from the LGBT community to
members of ROTC. It would centralize all student services and
programming space around the Ackerman Union/Westwood Plaza area,
freeing up academic space currently used by groups like the LGBT
Campus Resource Center and Student Psychological Services.

This referendum was designed with the students’ benefit in
mind. Although it does represent a considerable raise in mandatory
fees, the costs were streamlined and approved by a student-majority
board to ensure that that the project will be worthwhile. Even
after SPARC, students would pay less in activity fees than at most
other UC campuses.

In addition, fees will only apply when the new facilities are
built, so most current undergraduates will not be affected. We are
being asked to make an important decision for future students, and
we should not let them down.

The chancellor has allocated discretionary funding for the
project to keep the fee lower than it would be. Administrators have
also promised to attempt to seek out donors in order to reduce the
cost of the fee once it goes into effect. None of that will matter,
however, if students don’t approve SPARC in this week’s
election.