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Inoculation discussion raises question of new fees
By Allison Bailey
abaile19@mscd.edu

Photo by Amie Cribley • acribley@mscd.edu Stephen Monaco, director of health services, and Martha Eaton, assistant director of health services, speak with the executive committee of Metro’s Student Government Assembly Feb. 5.

Metro may start requiring students to get inoculated for a variety of illnesses, including measles and mumps, starting in fall, 2007 – and new student fees would cover the administrative costs.

Stephen Monaco, the director of health services at Metro, asked for a recommendation for the inoculations from the Student Government Assembly in an executive committee meeting Feb. 5. State law requires that all higher education institutions that have dorms make it mandatory for students to be inoculated. Because Metro does not have dorms, the law does not apply to the college.

Monaco said that ideally, all three schools at Auraria would implement the practice.

The change in policy would come with a $2 student fee intended to pay for the maintenance of inoculation records and a registered nurse available on campus to administer the inoculations.

While Monaco did answer some preliminary questions, SGA members have many more about the proposal and the accompanying fee and will be talking about it much more in the future, according to SGA President Jack Wylie.

Though the college is not required to follow the state law regarding inoculations, Metro President Stephen Jordan would like to see Metro’s voluntary compliance and get students inoculated or provide documentation that they have been vaccinated elsewhere, Monaco said.

Over the weekend prior to the executive committee meeting, the SGA reviewed its budget and discovered it has about $74,000 at its disposal, according to Rachel Zamboras, the SGA’s administrative assistant.

“I imagine that they will be a lot more liberal until May,” Zamboras said, referring to how the SGA will spend the money.

The SGA was expecting to have much less in its coffers – about $30,000 or $40,000, Zamboras said. The surplus is due to a shortage of senators over the past several months.

Some of the extra money was supposed to go towards the salaries of the empty seats, Zamboras said.

The new surplus should go to groups and clubs in need of extra funds this year, said Jesse Samora, the SGA speaker of the senate.

“I don’t think we should be rolling forward any of this money,” Samora said, referring to the policy that any unspent funds from one academic year be added to the budget of the next year. He advocated making the money immediately available for those who apply for it, and the rest of the assembly agreed.

Ashley Averill, the new vice president, went over the SGA’s total budget in light of a recent request by Brand Spankin New, a student organization that designs, manufactures and sells usable art. The organization requested $11,000 to send two students and two faculty members to China to network with Chinese businesses. Last week the SGA chose to not take action on the request until it had a better idea of its budget.