BY CLARISSA SKINNER

In print | Published October 30, 2008 — Updated December 03, 2008 23:13

In response to recently voiced concerns that students from low-income backgrounds who are financially reliant on paying campus jobs cannot feasibly serve on student government committees, Student Council has begun considering the possibility of compensating committee members with a salary. The suggestion of paying student government representatives, however, has sparked controversy within the Swarthmore community.

Equality for low-income students is the main argument of those in favor of financial compensation for committee members. Paul Apollo ’09, who served on both Student Council and the Student Budget Committee last year, said, “It’s not just or equitable for the student body, which is an economically diverse body, to only have people that don’t have to work [jobs] on committees.”

Apollo noted that lower-income students do serve on committees, but said, “A vast number of people that I’ve worked with are generally upper middle class at least.” He points out that low-income students have to balance not only their academic load and their work for committees, but also their jobs.

Apollo, who comes from a lower-income background and contributed a large amount of time to the committees he was on last year, said that he did not have spare time to work, and therefore did not have spare money. “I couldn’t buy pizza from Renato’s, or go to Philly with my friends,” he said. This year he chose not to serve on committees so that he would have sufficient time to take on a paying job. “This should not be a choice that lower-income students have to make,” he said. Paying students on committees eliminates the need to make this choice.

In response to the proposal, Student Council has fielded two types of questions: those pertaining to the funds needed to finance the salaries and those dealing with the potential impact of the proposal on the campus community. With regard to the funding question, the Council briefly considered the option of paying committee members through the Dean’s Office. But because council members convene with the Deans on behalf of the students, however, this possibility was deemed unethical.
Therefore, if this system were set up, committee members would be paid through the SBC. Student Council President Yongjun Heo ’09 estimates that 30 to 40 jobs would be created. Committee members would be paid for the hours spent in meetings only, ranging from a few hours per week to a few hours per semester depending on the committee. Although an exact amount is still being computed, Heo estimates that the total cost of paying committee members would come to a few thousand dollars yearly.

StuCo Vice-President David Sven Udekwu ’09 said, “Funding for groups and group events will come first. If a group wants supplemental money, there will definitely be enough.”

Another possible solution that has been raised is only paying students who are on financial aid. Apollo points out, however, that this would force students to divulge their financial aid status to others, cause the budget to constantly fluctuate from year to year, and also would be inequitable since higher-income students do the same amount of work.

Whether funds are available or not, two other questions about the notion of paying committee members have been raised. The first is how money might change the motivations of present and future committee members. The second is whether money degrades the intrinsic value of volunteering one’s services for the community.

“StuCo members don’t just want to pay themselves,” Heo said, who said that he is undecided about the issue. If the decision were made to pay committee members, Heo noted that payment would start next term; this would exclude those currently in the decision-making process from getting paid.
The issue of committee members getting paid also brings up concern about future candidates’ motivations for running for positions. Vice President Maurice Eldridge ’61 said, “[Working in student government] is a kind of service to the larger community that ought to come from interest and by volunteering.”

However, Udekwu said in an e-mail, “The students who would have run no matter what will still run.” The voters, he said, will have to distinguish between who is running because of the money and who is running because of their passion.

Eldridge also said that being paid debases the educational value of working as a volunteer in student government. “This is a group of people that come together with the campus community as its focus. They’re advocates, interpreters, seekers of information and brokers of solutions,” Eldridge said. For Eldridge, student government is an “effective conduit of information” from which “good emerges.” Money, he said, taints this process.

Eldridge “understands the pressure” for students on financial aid, he said, and hopes that problems of equality or limited choice can be remedied. However, he notes, the process of reaching that goal needs more consideration.

The one point on which both sides agree is that ultimately, the student body will have to decide this issue.

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