The Graduate and Professional Student Assembly (GPSA) has been pushing for the Edgar Winter Group to come for Slope Day 2009.

They’re not really … but they certainly could have fooled me with all of their singing of the band’s hit song, “Free Ride.”

That’s because with the GPSA’s current funding for Slope Day and the Slope Day Programming Board, they are in essence taking a “free ride” by way of a pathetically low amount of funding.

Slope Day is the one day of the year that our entire University community comes together. Thousands of students converge on Libe Slope on the last day of classes in the spring semester to enjoy music and each other’s company.

Unfortunately, Slope Day comes with costs. Fees for bands, security, logistics (like the fence), and insurance are well over $250,000.

Because Slope Day is a community event, many parties chip in to help cover the costs of Slope Day:

First, and foremost, the undergraduate Student Assembly (SA) has allocated $15 per undergraduate student, amounting to about $202,500 to offset the costs. Every undergraduate must pay this fee through their Student Activity Fee, regardless of whether or not they make it to the Slope.

A second source of revenue is generated through the sale of guest tickets. In fact, nearly 1,700 guest tickets were sold for Slope Day 2008. Additionally, the University covers a significant amount of costs from its operating budget.

The final source of funding (if you can call it that) comes from the GPSA’s Activity Fee. For Slope Day 2009, the GPSA will be paying $1.50 per graduate and professional student, which amasses to a grand total of $9,000.

Last year, the GPSA decided to fund Slope Day at $1.50 because they argued that Slope Day is an “undergraduate” event and that grad students are therefore less responsible for covering the costs.

But 90 percent less responsible?

During deliberations, GPSA representatives argued that most graduate and professional students do not attend Slope Day and are, instead, conducting research in labs or teaching sections (sections that are comprised of undergraduates, who in case you didn’t notice — AREN’T THERE!)

Numbers that were presented to the Student Assembly last week reveal that the GPSA may be a bit off in their estimates of how many of the graduate and professional students actually attend Slope Day.

In fact, nearly 1,500 graduate and professional students (about 22 percent) attended Slope Day 2009. And this was in a year when it rained on Slope Day and only about 52 percent of undergraduates attended. Had it been a sunny day, you can rest assured that these numbers would have been a lot higher all around.

Additionally, there is a 15-20 percent error from these figures because of problems scanning ID cards. That means as many as 42 percent of graduate and professional students attended Slope Day.

Graduate students are short-changing undergraduates by an insane amount of money.

There is only one way to correct this disparity: stop the (nearly) free rides and sell the graduate and professional students tickets to come to Slope Day.

How do we charge the graduate and professional tickets? Technically, the SA cannot mandate the GPSA do to anything.

Unfortunately, the SA will have to come down to using the Slope Day Programming Board as the enforcers of the ticket policy.

In Appendix B of the SA’s charter, there are guidelines and stipulations that the SA can place on by-line funded organizations (such as Slope Day, Concert Commission, Cinema, etc). Last year, the SA stipulated that the Slope Day Programming Board collect “demographic information from all Slope Day entrants beginning in May 2008.” In turn, “this information must be reported to the Student Assembly and GPSA during the Fall Semester following Slope Day. Based on this data, the Student Assembly will assess and if needed remedy the proportional funding relative to the GPSA of the Slope Day Programming Board.”

The data is in. Their arguments have been proven false. It’s time, Student Assembly, to remedy the proportional funding.

During deliberations last fall between the executive boards of the SA and the GPSA, I suggested that the GPSA withdraw all of their funding and have graduate students purchase $15 tickets if they wanted to attend Slope Day. This shouldn’t have been a problem with the GPSA Executive Board because they don’t think graduate and professional students go to Slope Day, anyway.

Instead, they turned the tables on us, the undergraduates, accusing us of holding the graduate students hostage with a heightened fee for Slope Day.

The last time I checked, Student Assembly members are elected to represent the undergraduates — NOT the graduate and professional students.

Now, combined with the GPSA’s stubbornness and the data that shows that graduate students, do, in fact, attend Slope Day, I propose the following:

Any Graduate and Professional Student who would like to gain entrance to Slope Day must purchase a ticket for $13.50, which is the cost funded per undergraduate ($15) minus the funding already provided by the GPSA ($1.50).

What if the Slope Day Programming Board resists and refuses to start implementing the tickets?

Simply put, the Student Assembly needs to withhold its funding until the problem is corrected. I guarantee you that with an ultimatum like this, it won’t be long before the Graduate and Professional Students start coughing up their fair share of the funding.

Let’s just hope the Edgar Winter Group doesn’t actually make it to Slope Day — in more ways than one.

C.J. Slicklen is a senior in the School of Hotel Administration. He can be reached at slicklen@cornell.edu. Closing Time appears alternate Wednesdays.