A tense debate over questionable spending ensued between members of the Student Association Senate and a department dean at the SA meeting in the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Union Ballroom Sunday, Feb. 26.

Robert Bucker, the dean of the Peck School of the Arts, fielded questions for nearly an hour after presenting a budget for the spending of differential tuition that would put the department more than $51,000 in debt.

The item that caused the most discussion between the senators and Bucker is the new hand ID security system that the department has installed on some of its facilities to allow its students 24/7 access.

Bucker said that the system is more sensible than an ID card system because it is easy to update and also eliminates the problem of tracking down ID cards.

He also said that the system was the best option for providing security for the young female students who use the facilities on late nights.

Another hot-button issue was the department’s spending of differential tuition money for additional instructors and an additional adviser. Bucker said that these things were needed so that arts students could better pursue their majors.

The Peck School of the Arts is also planning to increase differential tuition for the second year in a row during the 2006-2007 school year to $20 per credit, up from the current $15.

Bucker thinks that the discussion was just a general misunderstanding.

“Everybody is trying to understand based on what they do at their school instead of what we do in ours,” he said.

Sen. Andrea Duncan has a different opinion on the matter.

“The school is growing, great,” Duncan said. “But why do we have to pay for the gap in their funding?”

Differential tuition has become a problem all across UW System campuses since being introduced in 1999 as tuition costs continue to rise and price students out of a college education.

SA Vice President Robby Schuettpelz got right to the heart of the matter.

“I think that we should always avoid giving administration the authority to charge us more money,” Schuettpelz said. “We pay too much for tuition as it is.”

In other matters, the Senate on Sunday approved Cassandra Gauthier as the independent elections commissioner.

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