Letter: Fee increase for Union will greatly benefit students

On Tuesday, March 4, we ask that Duke undergraduates vote to increase the Duke University Union's portion of the Student Activities Fee by $11 per semester. The Union is the University's largest and oldest programming body, including Freewater films, Major Speakers, Major Attractions, Cable 13, Broadway at Duke, and much more. Each year we bring concerts, movies, original television and film programs, radio, Oktoberfest, Devilhunt, art exhibits, Broadway shows and many other programs that add to the quality of campus life and the Duke experience.

The Union is continually confronted with rising contract fees and technical costs. Over the last 10 years, we have found that skyrocketing costs have limited our ability to bring the best and most varied programming--programming that a school of Duke's caliber surely deserves. Thus, about every five to seven years we ask the student body to increase fees. Although most tuition and fee increases at Duke occur administratively, we ask for your direct input because we value our long tradition of student approval.

Look back to the Duke of the 1980s and early 1990s--the Union once brought six to eight major speakers (George Will, Jesse Jackson, Neil Simon), bands of great notoriety (Grateful Dead, R.E.M., Jimmy Buffet, Bruce Springstein) and dozens and dozens of quality smaller programs. The campus was alive and thriving with student-sponsored, popular programming. Look at schools across the nation-you will notice that Duke just does not offer the same attractions and events. But we have before and we can again.

Per student, the Union is not asking for that much--the price of a Domino's pizza. But for the Union, the collective increase will be dramatic. How do we plan to utilize greater funding? First and foremost, we would like to increase the budgets of Major Attractions and Major Speakers--two committees that are woefully under-funded and hampered by high technical fees and talent costs. Second, we would like to lower student ticket prices at those events that are not free. We would like to reduce Quadflix prices from the current $4 and make shows like "Rent," Maceo Parker, Jim Bruer and George Clinton cheaper for students. Third, greater funding will allow us to bring popular shows such as "Rent" for more than one night and will allow us to expand our efforts in small programming such as the Saturday night bands in the Armadillo Grill.

Although we are unaffiliated with Duke Student Government, we recognize that the student groups funded by the Student Organization Finance Committee are also in need of increased funding for many of the same reasons. Thus, I also hope that you will consider voting for that referendum.

Some students may object to any increase in fees based on sheer principle. I ask you to closely examine our situation. The Union continually works to enrich campus life and we only ask for increases when necessary. We are not a student government and we are not an administrative bureaucracy trying to push programming down your throat. We are a group of students, artists and campus leaders trying to create something fun, stimulating, recreational, intellectual and interesting while we are here. We have been doing it for 50 years and we want to do it for 50 more. But we need your help. If you like what we do, if you support our work, if you attend our programming, if you think you and this campus deserve quality programming than please get out and vote for the Union fee increase.