Interviewed by Ashley Foy, Special to The Recorder
Ashley Foy: What do you think about the tuition increase?
Kelley Fournier: I think the tuition increase is necessary, unless you want to lose professors and you want to lose classes, and you want to lose basic services that we as college students need. Considering the increase at UCONN and our other sister schools, their tuition is still higher than ours, all of them. We’re still the best price within the system. And I think, along with that, if you want to keep Central to the standard that it is held at, you need that increase, in order to make sure that you still have administrators and professors and you still have classes and programs with services. Those are the things that people want to have here, and in the economic climate today it is unrealistic to be able to keep those things without increasing tuition. It is a very small percent, it is 3.5 commuters and around 3.9 for residents, so it is very, very small. We’re still the cheapest public school (outside of community colleges).
AF: How would you make the students feel the benefit from this tuition increase?
KF: Well, basically, that is kind of hard, because you may see some additional things but you’re not really going to see a lot of that, you’re going to see the maintenance of services because if there wasn’t an increase in tuition, they would have to cut services, and they would have to cut positions and layoff people. By increasing tuition, you’re going to be able to fill in those gaps where that needed to happen. You are going to see that maintenance of programs and things like that.
The tuition increase, I don’t believe it is going to affect the student activity fee, which means that students will be still paying the same ($70 I believe it is) in student activity fees, which comes to us and a couple of organizations and other things like that. I am not sure how the resident breaks down, I am sure they will have extra costs associated with living. I am not a resident so I don’t know how all that breaks down. But I think a lot of what this is about, is more about preventing things from being cut, rather than adding things on, because today we really can’t be adding things on, it’s more about maintaining what we have over losing what we already have.”
AF: What are the flaws you see in the senate?
KF: (Laughs). “That’s an interesting question! I think my biggest, kind of, pet peeve with the senate, is order. I feel like we don’t keep good order. When I started six semesters ago, I am one of the longest serving senators. One thing I really loved my freshman year, we had a different president, and he kept order in meetings so well. Meetings were so efficient, there was never arguing, never any kind of question is this right/is this wrong, there was never drama or other things you can get in organizations, which I really liked. And it made senate look much more professional, act much more professional, and get more done. So I’d really like to restore that order, restore a strict enforcement of Robert’s rule.
One of the things I actually want to do if I’m elected is appoint a parliamentarian because we don’t have one, and we could really benefit from a parliamentarian. A lot of times it’s people’s judgment calls, and it’s always different people making those calls, and you need one person who knows how to run a meeting efficiently and effectively and you need that person to be making the calls. Sometimes it is not appropriate for the chair, president or an advisor to make those calls. I think that is something that definitely needs to be worked on. The second thing that kind of bothers me in the senate internally is our committees. Our committee structure needs serious revamping. They’re just kind of disorganized and doing their own thing in a lot of cases and there needs to be a way to not necessarily consolidate, but tighten it up and make it a stronger system. I think that would probably be the next thing that needs to be done. Other things internally, I think our finance system is working pretty well. It’s only be around for two years, so it’s still kind of in the beginning process, we’re still trying to work out the kinks. But I think for the most part that is okay.
There are some people who want to revamp our constitution, and I think there is a time for that, and there is kind of a need for that, a little bit. I don’t want to overdo it, I feel like some of my opponents and other senators want to really hard core overturn the constitution and I don’t think that is a good idea at all. Once you start picking it too much…you want to leave it broader and open for interpretation. I think that it needs to be tightened up, and it is a priority for me, but it is not something I am going to go crazy for. There are other things we need to tighten up first.
AF: How do you plan to fix it?
KF: I really want to appoint a parliamentarian, who’d be elected like a committee chairman. I’d appoint someone and then we would vote that in, to take care of the Robert’s rules and order of the meeting. Just another extra voice, to have someone really straightens out the bickering.
With committees, people really need to be assigned. Right now it’s go wherever-you-want type of a thing, and I don’t think that necessarily works. I think we need to do committee assignments for senators, that way we know where everyone is and have a concrete list of people on committees, so come time for review of senators, we have all that information available to us. I really think that assigning committees will be much more helpful. I also think another thing with committees, that as president (I make it a point already) to be at all of my committees meetings. There are only three, so it isn’t that strenuous, but I make it a point to be at all those meetings. I feel as an executive leader, you need to know what’s going on in every committee. You need to have some general idea of what everyone is doing. We don’t always get to committee reports in our meetings, so you kind of have to make up for that by being present at those meetings or at least having private conversations with committee chairs, and that is something I feel our executive leader is lacking right now. He doesn’t put an effort forward to go to committees, and I understand schedules are hectic and crazy but maybe you alternate every week or even meet in private.
Having a constitutional convention where a group of us get together, older and newer senators with different outlooks sit down and do that, and that’s already in the works, but I won’t take credit for that because it’s not my doing. I think it’s always good to be looking at our constitution, constitutions are meant to be like a living document that you are constantly working on, so I think it is great that we want to do that, but I also don’t want it to get too carried away. Some things are broad because they need to be broad. I do want to work on that, but I want to do it subtly, and not all at once because that has to be voted on by the entire student body, so it is a long process.”
The fourth candidate for SGA President, Zachary McGuirk, could not be reached for an interview.
