Beginning this semester, $2 has been added to student tuition and fee bills in order to pay for new statues of Barbara Jordan and Cesar Chavez on campus.
The Barbara Jordan Project, of the UT Orange Jackets, is working on the Jordan statue, and the We Are Texas Too statue committee is working on the Cesar Chavez statue.
The UT System Board of Regents approved the $2 statue fee at its August 2003 meeting.
"The statues will add to the campus atmosphere," said Sara Hanson, an undeclared sophomore.
Barbara Jordan, a former professor in the LBJ School of Public Affairs, was the first African-American woman elected to the U.S. Congress. Cesar Chavez was the founder and leader of The United Farm Workers, the first farm workers' union in the United States.
Gov. Rick Perry signed a bill in June that allowed the regents to add $2 to the student tuition and fees, which may not be charged after Aug. 31, 2007, according to the bill.
If enrollment continues to be about 50,000 students each semester, the statue fund will amount to approximately $600,000.
Any surplus above the amount needed for the statues must be set aside for scholarships in both Jordan and Chavez's names, according to the bill.
The $2 fee will upset some people, but everyone has $2 in their pocket, Hanson said.
"The statue fee should be a voluntary one," said Ahmet Toker, a graduate student in electrical engineering.
Cesar Chavez has no particular connection with the University, but "he's got a connection to a lot of people on campus, and he set a good example," Hanson said.
Organizers say they are waiting for the Master Plan Steering Committee to choose a campus location for the statues.
Students working on the Jordan project are taking care to follow campus planning protocols in the right order to avoid red-tape delays, said Joyce Jurado, Barbara Jordan Project coordinator.
"We don't want to get lost in a lot of paperwork," Jurado said.
Jordan statue organizers say they want to avoid the delays that took planners of the Martin Luther King Jr. statue 15 years to approve and erect.
"It's been a very good partnership [with the administration]," Jurado said.
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