President David Schmidly will attend an emergency meeting with ASUNM senators tonight at 6 p.m. in SUB Ballroom B.
Schmidly said he will talk to the Associated Students of UNM about the budget he plans to propose to the Board of Regents on Wednesday. He said he will talk about a tuition and fee increase, Aramark's contract and UNM's North Golf Course.
Tuition and fees are expected to rise by more than 2 percent, ASUNM Vice President Matt Barnes said.
Barnes said he wants to see the increase go toward opening Zimmerman Library 24 hours per day.
"We're not going to fight an increase just for the sake of fighting an increase," Barnes said. "We want them to be responsible for how they're doing it. We want the students to feel where the money goes. So, if they increase it 2 percent, and the money goes to opening the library 24 hours, and next fall, students come in and they can go to the library any time they want, that's great."
Schmidly said he would like to see the library's hours extended.
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"That's one of the suggestions that was made to me by the students at the budget summit," he said. "And I will be responding to that when I meet with the student government."
GPSA member Lissa Knudsen said the graduate student government doesn't want fees to go to the library.
Knudsen said the fees should go toward workshops designed for graduate students, such as CAPS.
"This is our money, and if we want to tell them what we want them to do with it, they're going to listen," she said.
Barnes said he wants to send a clear message to the regents that the University should be held responsible for funding programs that impact students.
"We don't want to see the money go to a renovation at Scholes Hall or something like that, because those are the kinds of things that students don't feel," he said. "But if it goes to better instruction, and there are seven better teachers next year - or we're able to keep faculty members based on the funding - that impacts students right away."
Schmidly said students deserve to hear about his budget recommendations before he presents them to the regents.
"I don't want them to be blindsided," he said. "I'm also going to meet with the head of the faculty council, the head of the Staff Council, a representative of the Dean's Council. The idea is that I have some preliminary thoughts that I'm going to present to the regents. And before I present those publicly, I would like for these groups to hear them from me."
