Press Clipping: Barnard College - Barnard's SGA is the only undergraduate council that receives member stipends. Why?

Barnard's SGA is the only undergraduate council that receives member stipends. Why?

November 2, 2023
By Eden Stranahan and Maya Stahl

Barnard Student Government Association is now in its second year of giving its members a stipend, after council members finalized stipend fulfillment expectations for the 2022-23 academic year at its first meeting of the year on Oct. 2.

The stipend was first approved by a Barnard student body vote in spring 2022 during SGA's 2021-22 constitutional review. The review occurs every three years during spring elections, during which SGA rewrites their constitution to be voted on and ratified by the student body. The next constitutional review will take place in spring 2025.

SGA is the only undergraduate student council at Columbia that is allotted a stipend.

SGA's president and vice president of policy first presented a stipend proposal to Barnard administration in the 2021-22 academic year to ensure they remained a socioeconomically diverse space, SGA wrote in an email to Spectator.

"At the time of SGA presenting this proposal to admin, members of SGA who identified as low-income voiced that they could not dedicate the time needed to successfully do their SGA jobs on top of the jobs they took on outside of SGA to attend Barnard," SGA wrote. "The thought process was that by making the position pay, it would allow for SGA to remain a financially diverse space where students from all experiences at Barnard could participate without having to worry about how it impacts their livelihood."

Stipend amounts are determined based on a four tier system: representatives, intercollegiate representatives, executive, and presidential. If members fulfill all of their expectations by the end of the semester, representatives will receive $750, intercollegiate representatives will receive $900, the executive tier will receive $1,100, and the presidential tier will receive $1,250. In 2022, the stipend was 6.77 percent of SGA's operating budget, totaling $43,111. SGA's budget is derived entirely from Barnard's Student Activities Fee. The Student Activities Fee, which is $254 for the 2023-24 academic year, is included in the cost of tuition at Barnard.

SGA members are reviewed and evaluated on a semesterly basis by an SGA faculty advisor to ensure they are meeting a mutually agreed on rubric of expectations.

"The four-tier system was created based on the hours each SGA member is constitutionally obligated to work," SGA wrote. "Members of the SGA are only guaranteed their full stipend if they fulfill the requirements of their position as indicated on the form, which our SGA advisor, the Director of [Student Engagement & Experience] evaluates."

At SGA's Oct. 2 stipend fulfillment discussion, SGA advisor Catlin Michael Wojtkowski gave a presentation on SGA member expectations and said that "the goal is to be able to justify the stipend paid for by your peers."

Stipends are reviewed and adjusted every three years when the council conducts its constitutional review. SGA has an estimated operating budget of $700,000, which is the second-largest operating budget of all Columbia student councils, following Columbia College Student Council's budget of $1,696,438.20.

Amid increases in enrollment and tuition, the stipend now accounts for less than 5 percent of the Student Activities Fee, according to SGA. The stipend can only be changed by a student body vote decided upon during constitutional review.

Nationally, more than 77 percent of student government leaders receive a stipend. According to a survey conducted by the American Student Government Association, 85.88 percent of state university elected officers receive a salary and 54.11 percent of private colleges pay their officers stipends.

The three other undergraduate councils—Columbia College Student Council, Engineering Student Council, and General Studies Student Council—told Spectator they have never pursued plans to create a stipend for its council members and have no plans of doing so in the future.

"Even if we wanted to pay ourselves, it would have to come out of students' pockets, which is inherently not something we would ever want to do," Kavi Krishnan, SEAS '25, ESC vice president of policy said. "We would rather have more money to put towards student events, throw more events, you know, actually do things that benefit the students, rather than giving ourselves pay because the benefits of being on ESC come from being able to do things for the student body."

President of CCSC Teji Vijayakumar, CC '24, said that because student council is a volunteer position, the student life fees should go toward the student body.

"We all volunteered for this position, we're elected by a group of people, and it feels kind of not great to take students' money and distribute it to a bunch of kids who kind of won a popularity contest in some ways," Vijayakumar said.

HaYoung Jin, SEAS '25, ESC president said that student council members who get paid for their work are more like administrators than student representatives.

"What separates you from being an administrator if you're getting paid by Columbia to do the work that you're doing? That is essentially what a Columbia administrator is, you get paid to work for Columbia, to do something for Columbia. We're students, we're doing this as a council to represent students," Jin said. "We're not doing this to get paid. We're not administrators, we are students at the end of the day."

Krishnan said student councils should be trusted to represent students without the incentive of a stipend. Jin said that the work student council members do is "invaluable" and "not quantifiable" by compensation through a stipend alone.

"It's something that you do out of love for your Columbia community. So I think that in and of itself is its own payment," Jin said.

SGA said that they recognize that other student councils are not paid and take that into account when working with students in all student councils.

"SGA does understand that we are being compensated for this work while they are not, and we put a tremendous amount of care and consideration when collaborating with the other three schools for that reason," SGA wrote to Spectator.

Staff Writer Eden Stranahan can be contacted at eden.stranahan@columbiaspectator.com. Follow Spectator on Twitter @ColumbiaSpec.

Staff Writer Maya Stahl can be contacted at maya.stahl@columbiaspectator.com. Follow Spectator on Twitter @ColumbiaSpec.