Issue date: 2/20/09 Section: Campus Life

The year 2009 , is being considered a time of change with the election of first African American president , Barack Obama and the record breaking numbers of people who showed up to vote. While it appears that change is occurring on a national level, it appears that Morgan State University is experiencing change in a rather less conducive manner. According to the Maryland State archives, Morgan State is home to 7005 students, 891 of whom are graduate students and 6114 are undergrad, moreover each student pays $1,079 dollars in student fees per semester. Over the course of 4 years, each student has paid $8,632 dollars and if a student were unable to graduate in four years and stayed for five years they are paying $10,790 dollars for student fees, the undergrad students alone are contributing an estimated amount of $52,776,048 -$65,970,060 dollars to Morgan State University.
Student fees pay for the use of athletic facilities, Student Government Association (SGA), Spokesmen newspaper, health insurance, student center operations, Shuttle bus, and the maintenance of the academic facilities on campus. SGA has two people whose job it is to monitor the funds of SGA, the advisor for SGA and comptroller both handle the financial dealings of SGA.
The comptroller is a student who is appointed by the President and vice -president to supervise the accounting and financial records of SGA, however the comptroller from Coley - Briggs administration resigned, while the facts behind the resignation are still vague. The SGA constitution states that the President or Comptroller must sign off or request any funds that are used by SGA. The president must take over the responsibilities of the comptroller. Around the time, SGA lost its comptroller the SGA advisor has lost her responsibilities, which consisted of ordering supplies, print shop orders, and the processing of all financial records and contracts that come through the SGA office
. The students of SGA hold the power to decide whether their advisor will receive, overtime for working student ran events. The loss of her responsibilities also took her over time. The over time is currently facilitated through the office of Student Activities, also over time is given to employees appointed by student activities and are receiving pay for their work. The workers have no history of employment in the SGA office yet, they are payed for through student funding.

The SGA Advisor is answering phones while all of her responsibilities are redistributed to Student Activities. During the absence of the comptroller and the removal of the advisor's responsibilities, peculiar transactions began to appear. The transactions list names and amounts but no description as to how the money is spent. The amounts ranged from $2,000 .00 to $122,900.00 dollars. The sentiments are communicable with both staff and students alike as one SGA member states, "they (President and Vice President) won't let us see any of the records; they say it is not for us to see." One faculty member says "Questions need to be asked and answered," indeed if students never inquire about how students fees are spent they will never know.

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