Although strained state funding drives tuition higher every year and slowly dwindles the university's selection of classes and programs, leading a student organization remains a profitable venture.
Ask UW-Madison student Ronald Sung, the chair of the Asian Pacific American Council, who will haul in over $8,000 next year, according to the Student Service Finance Committee's 2005-'06 budget.
APAC, an organization devoted to Asian-American equality and retention within the university, is among the more costly student organizations. With a proposed budget that ranks in the top five among student organizations, APAC's 2005-'06 salaries will amount to $131,020.
Sung is not the sole UW-Madison student in this tax bracket. UW-Madison fifth-year senior and Executive Director of Collegians for a Constructive Tomorrow Peter McCabe said he earns $500 a month, which would amount to almost $6,000 over a 48-week period, the normal work period for chairs of student groups. Next year, however, McCabe stands to earn $8,371.20, according to SSFC meeting minutes obtained by The Daily Cardinal.
Sung and McCabe are just two examples of the many UW-Madison student-group leaders who make multiple thousands of dollars per year.
Associated Students of Madison Chair and UW-Madison senior Emily McWilliams earns approximately $5,000. The Roman Catholic Foundation divvies a $5,920 salary among three Student Event Coordinators. By contrast, Writing Fellows make between $600 and $700 per semester.
SSFC Chair Janell Wise, whose organization distributed segregated fees to these student groups, described the budget approval process, emphasizing that campus impact was often a key budget determinant.
\Each organization has to break down each program that they plan to put on, who they're reaching, how much it's going to cost per student. [We] kind of evaluate it like that,"" Wise said. ""Obviously, we don't do any evaluating of any ideological content. Most of what we look at is what the impact on campus is going to be.""
CFACT is an environmental consumer organization based on free-market principles, McCabe said. It supplies internships for students and brings in a broad base of speakers to create a marketplace of ideas.
According to McCabe, the responsibilities and mental rigors of his job justify the amount of money he is making.
""I wish I had my hours in front of you,"" McCabe said. ""I'm the philosophical head of CFACT and jack-of-all-trades. It's everything. It's an extensive job.""
""I spend an inordinate amount of time to make the organization run and go. I spent four and a half hours today working out office hours with our new interns. We have 21 interns working, and I'm supposed to help them into the fold,"" McCabe said.
McCabe added he was responsible for keeping up with a vast array of environmental knowledge, as one of CFACT's goals was to generate a grassroots campaign promoting environmental consumerism. This constant attention to a changing field, he argued, was justification for his salary.
Sung detailed the demands of his job, which included running a staff of 21. He added he oversees several specific programs of APAC, and is working on one of his own. The programs are mainly outreach activities targeted toward Asian Americans.
""I [mostly] go over budget things with our financial officer ... at the Union, and I organize the meetings. I guess I'm the person that goes through and dots all the I's and crosses the T's. It's a pretty thankless job,"" Sung said. ""I write out all the contracts, work with the budget, meet with all the council members. I put in quite a bit of hours a week, about 25-30.""
Sung said that 82 percent of white students graduate from UW-Madison, as opposed to 69 percent of minorities, arguing that minority retention was a cause worthy of APAC's hefty budget.
""I try to run as tight a ship as I can,"" Sung said, before noting that the maximum hourly wage of officers of student organizations would increase next year from $8.75 to $9.22. ""It's going to be much better next year, hopefully.\
