Student Fee Advisory Committee

Minutes

Monday, October 26, 2020

1:00-2:00 p.m.

AGENDA

1. Welcome  Co-Chair Juarez

2. Approval of October 12 Minutes  Co-Chair Juarez

3. Course Fees Expenditure Audit Report  Avery

4. IRA Update: new Program Applications for 2021/22  Brambila

Members:

Jonathan Juarez
Laura Monje-Paulson
Noelia Brambila
Briana Sanchez
Yeymi Perez Bravo
Emily Miller
Hollis Robbins
Jeffrey Reeder
Elizabeth O’Brien

Non-Voting Staff to the Committee:

Sue Hardisty
Erik Dickson (absent)
Hayley Avery
Hilary Smith (absent)
Shanon Little

 

1. Welcome. Meeting was called to order at 1:02pm by Co-Chair Juarez.

2. Approval of October 12 minutes. Minutes were approved with no changes.

3. Course Fees Expenditure Audit Report

Hayley Avery works in Administration and Finance and helps to support SFAC by providing financial reports on student fees. Key points that she shared were:

• Prior to three years ago, course fees had not been audited as SFAC concentrated on IRA Programs.
• IRA subcommittee was created so they could focus on the IRA programs and processes and SFAC could focus on course fees.
• A Course Fee Audit Plan was established in 2018
• The last two years were spent reviewing course fees that were 50% or less expended at year end.
• Now that the most questionable course fees have been reviewed and cleaned up, SFAC can begin following the Course Fee Audit Plan which stipulates that course fees will be reviewed on a two-year cycle with ½ of the fees reviewed this year and the other ½ reviewed next year.
• Some funds may currently show a balance but don’t reflect that an expense has been encumbered and has not yet posted to the account.
• The course fee review was performed by a subcommittee of SFAC.

 

Discussion ensued on whether and how often departments and deans review course fee funds. In the School of Arts and Humanities, Robbins shared that she does periodically review course fees with departments, especially when a new Department Chair begins.

There was also discussion about refunding fees to students if/when the funds collected were in excess of expenditures. That hasn’t been the practice at SSU as the Course Fee Policy does not address this situation, however in some instances, students are given an option to return the item(s) purchased by their course fees to receive a full or partial refund. In other cases, unspent funds resulted in the course fee being reduced on a temporary basis for one year for the next cohort of students. To permanently modify a course fee, the department must go through the Course Fee Application process.

Avery also explained that when a course is no longer offered, per the policy, the trust fund holding the course fee funds is kept open for three years. If the course has not resumed, the fund is closed and any balance remaining is distributed according to the instructions on the Trust Fund Agreement. Usually the funds go to the Department general operating fund.

The committee also talked about looking at the Model UN course as it has been approved for both course fees and IRA funds.

Action: Form a subcommittee to perform this year’s review of course fees. Avery will send out more information regarding the scope of the work and who she recommends to be on this subcommittee.

4. IRA Update: New Program Applications for 21/22

Brambila shared the following information:

• Of 23 rollback requests, 14 were approved for amounts up to the remaining balance or to pay a specific bill.  
• The IRA subcommittee is recommending that SFAC not accept new IRA program applications for 21/22.
• In response to the above bullet point, Co-Chair Monje-Paulson shared that she is still scoping out the implications of a decision to not accept new program applications with the School Deans.
• The IRA subcommittee would also like to see SFAC include an assessment component into the annual review of course fees. Though funds may be spent on intended expenses, what is the impact on student learning?

Robbins expressed concern that some of the IRA programs that are integrated into the curriculum would be negatively affected by any decision to not continue to fund such programs. SFAC needs to look at all the IRA programs that are directly tied to courses and determine if they should be applying for course fees instead.

 

With no further comments, Co-chair Juarez adjourned the meeting at 1:49pm