EDITORIAL: Full disclosure

The UndergraduageThe UndergraduageAssembly's effort to obtain aThe UndergraduageAssembly's effort to obtain adetailed accounting of howThe UndergraduageAssembly's effort to obtain adetailed accounting of howthe General Fe is spent isThe UndergraduageAssembly's effort to obtain adetailed accounting of howthe General Fe is spent isright on the money.The UndergraduageAssembly's effort to obtain adetailed accounting of howthe General Fe is spent isright on the money.______________________________ Yet no one has been willing to give Schorr the information he's searching for, making us even more curious about what exactly the mysterious fee pays for. Is it a contingency fund deans can tap into when their schools run deficits, as the School of Arts and Sciences currently does? Is it a fund tucked away for an occasion like funding the increased security students demand when crime gets out of control? Or is it kept liquid so that the University can go on property-buying sprees and suck up much of the neighborhood surrounding campus? We can think of many other programs and departments that could make excellent use of $25 million, including Information Systems and Computing (to upgrade the outdated, undersized PennNet modem pool), Residential Life (to renovate spaces like Butcher-Speakman-Class of '28) and Intramural Recreation Sports (which desperately need a world-class gym facility to complement Penn's world-class academics). In fact, the General Fee may already fund some of these projects. University President Judith Rodin offered a broad accounting of its balance last spring. Still, at the current rate of progress on the General Fee issue, we'll never know specifically where our money goes -- or why. That's why we support Schorr's efforts to obtain from the Trustees a full, fair and frank breakdown of how General Fee income is allocated or invested. Publicly traded companies are held accountable by stockholders, who vote in person or by proxy at annual meetings for or against various company Directors to express a level of satisfaction with the company's performance. Students don't control appointments to the University's Board of Trustees, but we are the consumers the Trustees serve. They must respond to our requests for information we deserve to know. In addition, if the General Fee is allocated primarily to projects that improve student life, students should have a voice in prioritizing these projects, and Schorr should press for that, too.