[Vision2020] Universities, university presses, and Titanic folly

[Joan Opyr]

Dear Visionaries:

It is my understanding that the University of Idaho Press was the only 
university press in the state, and its importance to this community and to 
Idaho as a whole cannot be overestimated.  The job of the UI -- the job of 
any university -- is to educate, to promote sound research, and to support 
academic inquiry and publication.  Interim President Gary Michael's decision 
to close the UI Press will do irreparable harm to the institution.

The argument that the UI needs to choose between its self-supporting 
academic press and having a women's swim team is a red herring.  No such 
choice is necessary.  For heaven's sake, how much does a women's swim team 
cost?  What are we talking about here -- two poorly-paid coaches and a 
couple of Speedos?  The UI could fire one assistant football coach and pay 
for the entire swim team, plus hire Esther Williams to do twice-nightly 
Busby Berkeley shows in the UI pool.

This university, like many others, needs to make its mind up about its 
mission.  Why is an academic press making money on the chopping block while 
an athletic department hemorraghing big bucks is exempt?  Does the UI want 
to be an institution of higher learning or does it want to be a football 
mill?  The choice, at least to me, seems obvious.  As a university, we're 
pretty good.  Our engineering graduates are top-notch.  We produce terrific 
teachers and chemists and writers and business folk; biologists, wildlife 
managers, soil scientists, geologists, and agricultural researchers.  The 
academic work performed on the UI campus repays the state in untold 
millions.  Every time someone comes up with a higher protein wheat or a 
faster growing, more disease-resistant potato, Idaho makes money.  Lots of 
money.

But as a football mill -- well, sorry, fans, we're piss-poor.  How many UI 
players have gone on to the NFL?  The UI grads living in this house (and 
there are three, plus two more just up the hill) can only think of a few, 
and that's after scratching their heads for about half an hour.  As a 
basketball mill, of course, the UI fares even worse.  The only name anyone 
could come up with was Guy Johnson, who we think went on to play 
pro-basketball for an NBA team that used to be called the Maryland Bullets.

Listen.  We're not Oklahoma.  We're not Northwestern.  We're not Colorado, 
or California, or Florida State.  And I'm glad.  I like football; I love 
basketball.  I was delighted when my alma mater, NC State, won the NCAA 
Tournament in 1983.  In fact, I was ecstatic, but in the great scheme of 
things, so what?  NC State is a school, not a team.  The UI is a school, not 
a collection of fast swimmers.

Not that I think we should underrate fast swimming.  If we've reached the 
point where the UI feels that it can justify closing its press by pretending 
it needs to save a swim team, then it's time to change our name to the S.S. 
Titanic, get the band to play "Nearer My God to Thee," jump on into the 
water and Mark Spitz our way to the nearest iceberg.  The old rust bucket is 
going down.

And shut up with that "My Heart Will Go On" crap.  That got flushed down the 
budget toilet with Bob Hoover's Boise Teapot Dome.

Joan Opyr/Auntie Establishment

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