MoPirg: For the students and (kicked out) by the students
By: Andrea Royals
-News Editor-
Saving the world one step at a time may be difficult for a college student to do alone, but with the assistance of a public interest research group (PIRG), students can tackle social issues like global warming, public transit, affordable education and health care head on. PIRGs offer students an opportunity to work together toward a goal to produce effective results. Whether or not those goals are reached vary from PIRG to PIRG.
“Our goal is to increase awareness and pressure legislative action,” said former MoPIRG campus organizer Katie Thomas at Meramec. MoPIRG members and interns work together to modify public well-being through extensive campaigning by promoting the awareness of topical issues among the community.
However, last spring, MoPIRG efforts were curtailed.
For the last 25 years, STLCC-Meramec has been home to a chapter of MoPIRG, the last remaining PIRG chapter in Missouri. In March 2010, Meramec students voted to remove funding for the non-profit organization, thus removing the last presence of MoPIRG chapters from the entire state.
The results of the election did not reflect the opinions Meramec students may have had about the goals of MoPIRG campaigns, but rather the opposition to the method the organization utilized to obtain funding from the college.
Every two years, students are called to reaffirm the presence of the MoPIRG chapter at Meramec. Last spring, the chapter met opposition from NOpirg, a club on campus that sought to abolish the removable $7 optional fee students paid at the time of class registration.
Students who registered for classes through the online Banner Self-Service did not have the option of removing the fee unless they paid a visit to the registration center following their payment. To the benefit of MoPIRG, the task proved to be an inconvenience for some students.
“The fee is a sneaky way to steal money from unsuspecting students who think this money goes to student activities here on campus,” said NOpirg President Steven Vollenweider, who initially paid the fee because he said he thought it directly benefited the college.
MoPIRG collected an estimated $70,000 from Meramec students during the 2009 – 2010 academic year.
According to former MoPIRG member Andrew Shapiro, the money collected from the fee at Meramec is then submitted to a national fund for PIRGs across the country, thus producing little documentation of the direct effectiveness the funds from Meramec students have at the college.
“MoPIRG will bring their mobilizing efforts to your campus,” Shapiro said, “but for a price.”
NOpirg argued in a debate forum prior to the reaffirmation election that the management of MoPIRG was inadequate because campus organizers frequently change each semester and that the organization’s results on the Meramec campus were not evident.
A total of 548 students voted in the reaffirmation election, resulting in a 328 percent increase in voter turnout since the last reaffirmation election in 2008. Former Student Governance Council (SGC) President Michael Roman said that the increase was a result of the extensive canvassing efforts led by both MoPIRG and NOpirg in the weeks prior to the election.
Members promoted both sides of the election through tabling, debates and poster promotions. However, according to members of SGC, MoPIRG campaign efforts were in direct violation of ethical election procedures that prohibit faculty from endorsing organizations on campus, as several professors from various departments at the college defended the organization.
“Engaging students into real political action, mobilizing citizens to fight for what is needed and refusing to accept the same old tired excuses is what organizations like MoPIRG are all about,” said political science professor John Messmer, Ph.D.
Messmer said that the removal of MoPIRG from the college would be a blow to student life on the Meramec campus.
Others disagree.
Roman said that the removal of MoPIRG from the campus allows organizations approved by SGC to directly address issues of public importance for STLCC, including preventative health care services on each campus and an increase in public transit through the recently passed legislation Proposition A.
While MoPIRG claims to have had an influence in the passage of Proposition A, its overall contribution to the legislation, as well as to other campaigns, is debatable.
Recent newsletters from MoPIRG have called students to encourage pell grants for financial aid, ban offshore drilling in the United States and mobilize to change privacy settings on the social networking site Facebook. Whether or not MoPIRG is directly contributing to these efforts is uncertain.
While Midwest Region MoPIRG organizing director Stacey Hafner continues to send e-mailed updates to members periodically, she has not confirmed with The Montage that the organization is seeking another campus at which to operate.
MoPIRG has remained relatively inactive since the last remaining chapter was removed from the Meramec campus last March and the future of a chapter at any college campus in Missouri is unknown.
The Meramec campus may still serve as a home for MoPIRG, but the chapter must provide its own funding. The allowance from the college is cut off.
