The King’s Board of Governors has voted in favour of implementing a new university fee upon completion of a new athletics facility at Dalhousie University.
Voters in a recent King’s Students’ Union referendum were overwhelmingly against the $180 fee, with 245 students voting against it, 79 voting for, and 21 abstaining. The referendum was to determine the KSU’s position and its results were not binding.
Anna Dubinksi, one of the board’s student representatives, says the board put “a lot of weight behind the student perspective.” She says the decision was made in the context of the bigger picture and the longer term. The fee will not come into effect until 2015, which means many current students will never have to pay it.
Dubinski said the board is “not simply giving into Dal’s wishes.” She said recruitment was part of the discussion, as was Kings’ identity, which includes a partnership with Dalhousie.
Some students at Monday night’s forum raised concerns about rising student fees, and expressed a desire to choose where they spent their money.
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Other attendees, including students as well as Kings’ athletics director Neil Hooper, registrar Elizabeth Yeo, and President George Cooper, presented supporting the facility as an opportunity.
The fee will give King’s students access to the new facility, which is being billed as a giant GoodLife.
There will be room for one King’s student rep on the facility’s steering committee.
