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Students at Carnegie Mellon University may soon be paying part of student government executives’ living expenses if a student-wide referendum has majority support.

Student Body President Rotimi Abimbola introduced the referendum, noting that the stressful positions held by executives leave little time to earn money.  

“I’m either in class or at a meeting, which is what your schedule is like as president. When you do have free time, people always…ask you to come to meetings or make decisions…so the to-do list is really just endless,” Abimbola said. “After a lot of hard work and investing a lot of time and effort into the position…I began to realize that I needed some type of income.”

If approved, executives would receive stipends by fall 2010 at the earliest, and would be allotted to a new president and vice president.

The student government has two options to fund the stipends: from an outside donor or from student activities fees. Students are reacting with concern, but one of the goals of the referendum is to spread awareness of work done by the student government.

At CMU, that work includes not only governance but advocacy on behalf of students before city council.  Abimbola and others led the charge in a grassroots campaign to organize students in Pittsburgh against a proposed student tax. Abimbola met with city council members, drummed up media attention, and pushed email campaigns to stop the measure. The mayor dropped the proposal before it ever got to a vote.

“In the past, many in the student body have felt that student government is just a bunch of people who love titles and don’t do anything,” Abimbola said. “Most of the Senators [in Undergraduate Student Senate] thought stipends should come out of the student activities fee so there is some sense of accountability to your constituents.”

But some students like sophomore Eric Wu, who is running for student body vice president of finance, said student activities fees are already cut short by budget reductions and there’s not enough to provide for stipends.

“The Joint Funding Committee already has a hard time cutting down budgets with the pool that is allocated to us from the student activities fee,” Wu said.

Others like junior Michael Surh, running for student body president, thinks the money should be saved and allocated elsewhere, considering the current economic situation.

“Carnegie Mellon is an awesome school, and there are a lot of programs here that could use extra funding. We need to make sure that every single student here gets the full experience, because that is what student government is here to do,” Surh said.

Junior Micah Rosa considers holding a position in the student government a meaningful and worthwhile position even without pay. 

“We should be content with our positions and with the satisfaction we get from our positions. We get power, we get influence, we get respect, and we get a strong résumé builder,” Rosa said.

But some feel that having the position without pay closes it off to some students.

"It would be a disservice to the student body if the right candidate for a position decided they were unable to run because they just couldn't afford not to have a part-time job on the side," said Student Body Vice President of Finance Nara Kasbergen, "and the many hours required by holding such a position make it impossible to have a job."

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