This year, the Green Fee Committee approved eight student projects supporting renewable energy. The VP of Business and Finance at Lewis & Clark, Carl Vance, has since intervened to determine which of those projects ultimately receive funding. This has resulted in only two projects receiving funding, and all of the rest being denied without any explicit reason.

If there is a lack of trust in our ability, as students, to allocate our own money that needs to something that is stated outright.

By signing this petition we are asking that the remaining six student projects receive the funding that was approved to them by the Green Fee Committee. We are additionally calling for a committee to be formally convened at the beginning of the fall semester and tasked with articulating the future of the Green Fee Fund.

This committee shall be chaired by Vice President David Ellis (as the legal council of the College), and will be composed as follows: Carl Vance, or a designee; Anna Gonzalez, or designee; two faculty members to be chosen by the faculty governance board, and five undergraduate students to be chosen by ASLC.

Former committees have failed to incorporate the necessary student input, but the committee outlined above shall serve to establish how students believe their voluntary Green Fee contributions should be spent. This is student money, and it is time our voices were heard.

For more complete coverage of the issue by the Pioneer Log, click here.

For a brief history of the Green Fee Fund, click here.

To read the open letter written to Carl Vance, click here.

Sam Alexander    Contact the author of the petition