CRP officially defunded

ASG voted 22-7 to defund online WSJ and NYT access 

Luke Garrett / News Editor / The USD Vista

The Associated Student Government Senate voted to officially defund the entire College Readership Program the Friday before Thanksgiving. Although, the decades-old program dedicated to informing USD students through access to national newspapers did not go down without a fight. 

ASG senators filed into the third floor of the Student Life Pavilion around 5 p.m. on Friday, Nov. 22 with only one item on the agenda: the College Readership Program. After an hour of deliberation, the motion to defund the program passed by a single vote.

Two years ago, the program funded both physical and digital subscriptions to national newspapers, but was cut down to digital access to The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times. At the start of this semester, ASG leaders decided to defund the entire program, but faced backlash in the form of two grassroots petitions garnering a total of over 350 students signatories asking ASG to refund the digital subscriptions.

Confusion and controversy concerning the program plagued ASG senators, some of whom had never heard of the program before and were hearing contradictory information from petition leaders and ASG leadership. 

Amidst all the decisions, funding reallocation, and petitions, one ASG member sat at the center of it all: Vice President Greyson Taylor. The $13,000 originally allocated to the program fell under his budget, the decision to defund the program was largely his, and at the decisive Nov. 22 senate Taylor made an effort to save the program he once hoped to end. 

Taylor stood in front of ASG senators and told them he had gotten it wrong. He wanted to set the record straight.

“I do feel responsible,” Taylor said at the beginning of his nearly five-minute statement.

He continued to say he originally voted to defund the program because he thought that Copley Library’s access was sufficient to replace the College Readership Program, but that he realized that this wasn’t the case.

“For me, my decision was based off the Copley Library,” Taylor said. “But I don’t think it is sufficient. I don’t think it is sufficient at all to what students were looking for. You know for us to say that it is good enough, no it is not. It’s not good enough. It is just a different resource. It is like we are comparing apples and oranges. They are both fruits, they are not the same.”

Taylor had never publicly supported the program until this statement. He continued to explain the reality of ASG’s funding and asked the Senate to fund the College Readership Program, as there is currently no other planned initiative to spend USD students’ $13,000 on. 

“Where can we use this for money better spent?” Taylor asked those senators who wanted to use the program’s funding for another initiative. “We were not able to come up with any alternative options. That is because to find something that is worth that $13,000, that takes time, that takes effort, thought. You can’t do that in two weeks.”

He also noted that even if some of the initiatives come to fruition, ASG has the money to pay for both the College Readership Program and new initiatives.

“We could do them all,” Taylor said. “Funding the College Readership Program and funding every other initiative that has been brought up is not mutually exclusive. We can do both. That is why I voted for it in finance committee.” 

Taylor ended by defending his newly shared opinion, and also alluded to a possible reason why many in ASG don’t want the program funded.

“Students want it,” Taylor said. “I am here to serve the people. Granted it is a certain group or demographic that some individuals might not love. Are we just going to cater to them because that is what the school has historically done? I mean, what is the alternative?”

Taylor alluded to a perception addressed by one of the petitioners, namely that some ASG members dislike the College Readership Program because it is solely used and petitioned for by students in the school of business.

“Good luck with your decision,” Taylor concluded.

President Marion Chavarria Rivera continued her opposition to the program. 

Chavarria Rivera told senators that she knew an unnamed person who read The Wall Street Journal, but this person thought the $13,000 could be used better. The ASG president then read a number of initiatives that this unnamed person wrote down. 

“Even students who actively use it are actively trying to think of ways to reallocate that money because they feel as though it could be used better somewhere else,” Chavarria Rivera said.

Some senators who agreed with the ASG President went on to discount those who petitioned to keep the College Readership Program.

Commuter senator Nadia Al-Faraje argued that the petitioners represent a very small portion of the student body and that they are most likely uneducated about the process.

“So keep in mind that the people signing the petition, probably a lot of them don’t even know the situation,” Al-Faraje said. “They might not know anything about the situation. It is a really small amount of people.”

Not all senators agreed. Alcalá Vistas senator Mary-Logan Miske believed it was the senate’s duty to respond to the petitioners’ request.

“This is what our students want,” Miske said. “And I feel like we are fighting against what our student body wants. This is our time to make a decision. Students keep bringing it up.”  

As Miske spoke, senator Angelo Tharp broke order and said “they totally don’t” under his breath. He gained a number of laughs from the senate.

Tharp then quickly moved to limit the discussion to five minutes, and thereafter a roll call vote was made. 

Seven senators voted to fund the College Readership Program and 22 voted to defund the program, which placed the $13,000 into a pool of excess funds that will not be used until the spring semester, if at all, according to Finance Chair George Saunderson.

To sophomore Jordan Ritchie, the sole member of the public attending the meeting, the decision to defund the program was a disappointment.

“I don’t think they should have put the money in the pool unless someone with a significant plan is ready to take action,” Ritchie said. “With only a semester left in the year, I don’t believe that anything with the money will get done this term.”

Ritchie was also unenthused by the idea that she now can only access The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times through Copley Library.

“I want to be informed as a citizen on a daily basis of what is going on.” Ritchie said. “I am not going to a database to do this.”