Tuesday, October 27, 2009
GSA and the ASUN Bookstore (Or, who'd you say is getting ASUN's money?)
The Associated Students of the University of Nevada, through several complicated relationships, owns the ASUN Bookstore housed in the Joe Crowley Student Union. Memos of understanding and practice indicate that this is the case. ASUN purchased the bookstore in 1951.
The ASUN and the GSA did not always used to exist as separate entitites. In 1952, the graduate students split, establishing the Graduate Student Association (GSA). Unfortunately, the graduate students negelected to realize at the time that they never retained any say over the bookstore when they left. A bad move when you consider how much revenue the bookstore now generates.
Finally realizing their mistake, in 1997 GSA and ASUN entered into a profit sharing agreement regarding the bookstore. The agreement provided that a certain share of the revenue from the bookstore would be provided to GSA based on a formula. The agreement provided that it was up for renewal in five years, and it took the affirmative votes of both the ASUN and GSA legislative branches to effectuate renewal. The agreement was renewed for five years in 2003.
Another five years passed, and during the 75th Session of the ASUN Senate (2007-2008), the agreement was up again for renewal. On April 2, 2008, I introduced a bill to direct the President of ASUN to take any and all action necessary to terminate the agreement. As far as I know, the agreement was never renewed prior to the deadline imposed by the agreement itself. It would have had to come to my committee (Budget and Finance) for a vote, and it never did. Thus, I feel confident in assuming the agreement no longer is legally binding. Therefore, the agreement is void due to its its failure to be renewed.
Knowing that, now I read the Sagebrush, making the astonishing claim in its editorial this week that the GSA still receives money from the ASUN Bookstore. Huh-ba-wha? If that's the case, then I'd like to know how and why GSA has still been receiving money from ASUN's bookstore. This should be the perfect thing for the Budget and Finance Committee to look into while everyone else is worrying about Joint Vision 2017 (and until a couple of the other committees figure out that they have concurrent jurisdiction over Joint Vision, but that might be a little too complicated for right now).
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