A meeting between officials of Marquette Student Government and members of the administration resulted in students' concerns not being "well received," according to MUSG President and College of Business Administration senior Dan Calandriello. The meeting Friday was held to discuss university decisions made during summer break regarding change to student services.

Such changes discussed in student services include initiation of a $2 ATM fee in U.S. Bank on-campus ATMs, increased prices of Pepsi products, price increases of food at the Marquette Place and change from Alterra to Stone Creek as the official university coffee supplier.

"These decisions were made without student involvement, which is a major problem which MUSG does not take lightly," Calandriello said. "Unfortunately, I don't feel that our concern was well received."

Nonetheless, Calandriello said he was optimistic.

"We will work with the administration to make sure (a change without student input) never happens again," he said. "MUSG will remain a committed advocate for student involvement in university decisions that affect students."

According to Vice President for Administration Art Scheuber, who met with the MUSG members, the university will solicit student input "whenever possible."

But "there's not always time to solicit input," he said. "There are 10,000 vendors on campus; what are the issues that make it to the point where you want student input?"

In an effort to establish an official voice of the students, the administration is working toward creating a new all-university committee to address student services on campus.

According to an MUSG press release, this committee would include a number of branches of the university including Alumni Memorial Union and Auxiliary Services and the offices of Student Affairs, Athletics, Marketing and Communication, Finance, University Advancement and the President. It would also have as many as six student representatives.

"The intent of this all-university committee is to include people who we believe have truly captured the Marquette spirit in decision making and take a proactive approach in hearing about student experiences and addressing things before they become concerns," said Associate Vice President of Administration Toby Peters, another administration member in the Friday meeting.

According to MUSG Legislative Vice President and College of Arts & Sciences junior Brock Banks, the creation of the new committee is in the early stages and "regardless of how the development of this group proceeds the administration must not circumvent existing all-university committees when making decisions that affect students."

The committee does not yet have a name, but the first meeting could be as soon as two to three weeks from now, Peters said.

Regarding the changes, Peters said the administration "could have communicated better. We certainly wish we would have had the opportunity to include the student body in these decisions but the bottom line is sometimes we have to make decisions quickly.

"It was not as if we waited until the students left to make a decision; it was not like that at all."

Scheuber said the student body should remember the administration is "very concerned with student opinion but sometimes don't have the luxury of time" to solicit student opinion because "running the university is still a business."