ARTICLE: CSSA agenda release and ssf forums

Success Fee:
Student government officials and administrators have been collaborating to raise tuition on students behind the back of Jerry brown, who promised not to raise tuition. They are doing this by calling the tuition hikes student success fees and having students implement the fee increases on fellow students.
This has been done either through establishing committees of only select student government participants, or by vote where they run intense pro fee campaigns and bank on the fact that very little students, about 10% average, actually turn out to vote. The fees usually pass with votes at 55% to 45%.
If you look at the fees, they aren’t anything more than increases in tuition, an idea and operation coming out of the chancellor’s office, with the funding frequently nontransparent and/or purposed for athletics,. Controversy has erupted over them multiple times, including a walk out in San Jose State and a boycott of donations by alumni at Sonoma State.
The fees haven’t hit all the campuses yet, administrators colluding with the chancellors office wait until the time is right to introduce the fee to their student governments to push forward.
They have been especially cautious after it blew up in the face of pro fee administrators at Sonoma state university, where faculty and students organized a pledge to boycott all future alumni donations and got 1000 pledges not to donate in 3 days. The pressure from this boycott forced the SSU administration to abandon the fee increase for that time being.
The fees have been as high as 390 dollars per semester, varying campus to campus, and frequently coming in incremental stages over several semesters.
After student organizations protested fee increases heavily at a board of trustees meeting in long beach, Jerry Brown and other state legislatures wised up on the chancellors office game. A moratorium on the new success fees was issued, and a working group to assess the fees established.
In coordination with the CSSA, the working group conducted forums over the course of a week In late September at Sonoma State University, CSU Northridge, and CSULA.
Pro fee student government officials from across the state have been renting cars and vans at university expense and carpooling to the forums to sway their results to be pro fee. Counter mobilizations by those against the fees were present but had limited resources and notice so were sparse in comparison. Reports at Northridge counted 15 associated student officials speaking in favor of the success fees, along with several professors. Only 5 other students were present, respectively from the organizations Mecha, Students of Quality Education, and the California Student Union, and were all speaking against the fee.
After these public forums--which were mostly filled with pro-fee student government officials--the fee review committee plans to solicit input from the system wide Academic Senate, the CSSA, each campus Senate, and each campus Associated Students organization.
On October 10th, Student Government Officials, many of whom attended the forums, will be flying to Humboldt State University to discuss the results of these forums at the California State Student Association Conference (CSSA.)
The meeting is open to the public and falls under the Gloria Romero Open Meetings Act. All interested parties are encouraged to attend to voice their opinions regarding these category II fees. More information along with a detailed meeting agenda of all items for discussion is available at: http://www.csustudents.org/index.php/what-we-do/events/meeting-dates/