Results of last week’s Student Senate referendum to increase student fees by $10 per semester to fund an environmental account were still not available as of Sunday.

The referendum sought student input on an environmental initiatives account that would fund student-faculty research projects, capstone courses and other green projects. The more-than-$200,000 account would draw money from students by charging each student $10 per semester.

The online referendum was scheduled to take place Thursday from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., but Zachary Boldon, Senate Parliamentarian and chair of the Senate Internal Affairs Committee, said problems with the online survey Thursday required Senate to re-send the question to students and extend the deadline to 8:30 p.m. Friday. An e-mail sent to students that stated the deadline was 5 p.m. Friday was an error, said Boldon, who explained the new deadline had always been set for 8:30 p.m.

Boldon said Senate was “given the wrong distribution list to begin with” and that freshmen initially could not log on to the survey but alumni could. He said the problem prompted Senate to re-send the referendum and extend the deadline after resolving the problem.

Boldon also said he had been told about preliminary results on Friday, but he would not comment on them. He also said the final results weren’t official as of Sunday and that the Internal Affairs Committee would meet during the week to review the referendum’s legitimacy.

Though impossible to gauge overall campus response to the referendum, interviews with a handful of students Sunday afternoon in one of the university’s residence halls showed that students who had voted were mostly in support of the referendum.

“I voted for it,” sophomore Paul Williams said. “If your tuition’s a few thousand (dollars) to begin with, I feel like increasing it a few dollars to make our campus more environmentally friendly is totally fine with me.”

-The Spectator staff