Student Senator Jake Messer, sophomore psychology major and Senate’s public relations chair, has created a new Facebook page urging students to vote against the proposed athletic fee.

After looking through the content on the page, “Vote NO to the ROAR fund,” it seems that Messer has not provided students with all of the information about the ROAR fund. Some of the information on the page is misleading.

From my understanding, this is not a vote for students to choose where the fund should be allotted. There is not a pool of money that the University is offering to any department on campus.

This is a proposal the athletic department presented to Student Senate, asking to charge students $4 per credit hour. According to the proposal, which was distributed at the Senate meeting last week, the purpose of the fund, “is to improve the overall experience at University sporting events for MSSU students, community members, student-athletes and prospective students.”

In the “about” section of the Facebook page, Messer does not provide factual information about the fund and what the students will be voting on. He does provide an estimate based on his own calculations of how much the fund could potentially raise.

He created a sort of graphic to persuade students the money could be used for other areas, but like I said before, this is not a pool full of money to give to whichever department on campus wants it.

When I asked Messer if he informed or encouraged students to put forth proposals to Student Senate as the athletic department has done, he said it had not been considered.

On the Facebook page and in person, Messer says that the Facebook page is the only avenue for the people against the ROAR fund.

“Athletics has an ad on the MSSU website, they are going to put ads in The Chart, as you probably are well aware of, at least that is what has been told to me,” said Messer.

Point of clarification, no one has contacted The Chart to purchase an ad and all students, clubs and departments have the ability to purchase an ad in The Chart.

My final and main concern is about correctly informing the student body. A few weeks ago at the Student Senate meeting, some senators voiced their concern that it is the job of Student Senators to inform the students and gather their opinions.

I also feel like it is our job as the campus newspaper to provide information to the students. I encourage students to visit page 3 of this week’s paper and to pick up the paper each week to read the articles pertaining to news and events throughout campus.

It is our goal to present the facts objectively so students can make an informed choice at the polls.