[Vision2020] UI Athletics Must Pay Its Fair Share

[Scott Dredge]

The main point which you have missed was: 'The union's goal this time is much more modest: a simple request that athletics pay its fair share of the administrative fee.'
 
On the surface it sounds like a fair request to me.  But since the athletic department is a sacred cow, I don't see where the enforcement is going to come from to get them to pay their fair share.  Maybe there is some middle ground that can be reached such as the athletic department agreeing to pony up their fare share as long as there is a guarantee that the student athletes receive passing grades.  No pass, no pay. 
 
-Scott



Date: Wed, 31 Dec 2008 14:11:03 -0900From: skialaska0 at gmail.comTo: nickgier at roadrunner.com; vision2020 at moscow.comSubject: Re: [Vision2020] UI Athletics Must Pay Its Fair Share
Nick,
You are again attacking the wrong problem; the real problem is a bloated administration that sucks the life out of the various colleges and departments within the UI.  Since you have a long history at the UI, why don't you propose that the administration take a cleaver to itself and cut itself back to the size it had in the early 1980's?  Remember back then that the University had roughly 8000 or so students, overhead on research grants was 23%, and colleges and departments did not pay any "fees" to the central administration?  That should be the goal of your arguement, not attacking the athletic department.  After all, without athletics, racial diversity would be non-existent at the UI; and attempts to maintain gender equality would probably slip away.   
 
I know that the move to the WAC has been a huge throne in your side; however, there are far more females attending the UI with athletic scholarships than in the Big Sky days.  Why do you and the leadership of the union so despise athletic scholarships?   Why do you fight so hard to destroy the one department at the UI that is largely responsible for racial diversity?  So what if the football team has had a poor record in the last few years; the upside is that the UI has these athletes as students.  The NCAA stats clearly show that the UI has far better students than most universities in the WAC, enjoy that and build on that.   Look at the flip side at BSU, sure they were 12-1 this season, but their football student athletes obviously are not there for the education and they proudly admit it.   If the Ada County dominated state legislature wants to keep supporting BSU athletic greatness at the expense of football players, fine.
 
Your cause, and the cause of the union, should be to force drastic cuts within the central administration, that is where the problem really exists.  Stop attacking the one department that is largely responsible for the diverse student body the UI enjoys.
 
Happy New Year,Chris
 
On Tue, Dec 30, 2008 at 10:41 AM, <nickgier at roadrunner.com> wrote:
Good Morning,This my radio commentary for Radio Free Moscow (KRFP 92.5 FM) for tomorrow AM.  The UI budget office has been closed for the holidays, so I still need to gather more data.  For example, I would like to know the total number and amounts of the scholarship that UI departments offer their students.Visionaries may be interested in "Back to the Big Sky," a column that the UI union president and I did back in 2005.  It can be found at www.home.roadrunner.com/~nickgier/bigsky.htm.Happy New Year,Nick GierThis is Nick Gier, the Palouse Pundit and state faculty union president, talking about the UI financial emergency and the athletic department.At the December 16 Faculty Council meeting, UI Provost Doug Baker was asked to defend the break that UI athletics receives on an administrative fee that all department pay to the central administration.  Baker's response was that our teams could not possibly succeed without this favor.For years our departments have performed very well, far better than men's football and basketball, all the while experiencing frequent budget cuts and paying the full 8 percent fee on all external funds.UI athletics only pays 3 percent of its external funds to the central administration. For FY2002 the athletics paid no administrative fee at all, claiming that it had to reach gender equity goals.  Many other departments could have presented equally persuasive reasons why they too should be exempt.For example, auxiliary services and facilities management generate lots of external funds, and they could very well argue that their salaries, 19 percent of which are below the poverty level, should rise before they are required to pay the administrative fee.In the spring of 2005 then President Tim White, even though a faculty committee recommended a $300,000 cut for athletics, chose instead to fire 27 staff employees in the physical plant.While most UI employees have gone without pay raises, the athletic director enjoyed an 8 percent raise for FY09, and a salary line for football coaches, who have lost a record number of football games, also increased 8 percent.In a response to the December 16 Faculty Council discussion (The Daily News, Dec. 17), the athletic department defended its low administrative fee by saying that it returns $2.5 million back to the university in "the form of tuition, fees, room and board for scholarship students."  Many other departments, however, do the same with their own scholarship funds.If the implication of this claim is that athletics makes money for UI, then this is clearly false.  For FY09 the athletics department estimated that it would take in $2.1 million dollars in student fees in addition to a $3 million direct subsidy from the Legislature.A national study concluded that only nine athletic programs are able to actually return money to their respective academic programs. Contrary to conventional wisdom, winning athletic programs do not increase alumni funding. As a Vice President at the University of Notre Dame says: "There is no empirical evidence demonstrating a correlation between athletic department achievement and alumni fund-raising success."Winning football teams at Wisconsin, Michigan, UCLA, Texas, and Washington correlate with a low ranking of 126, 128, 134, 136, and 144 respectively on a national alumni giving list. Coming from Oregon State, President White once boasted about how much money its winning football team brought in, but in FY05 the OSU athletic department had a $4 million deficit.In the fall of 2005 the Faculty Council turned down a faculty union request for a four-step phase out of the $3 million subsidy for athletics.  For most of the 1980s there was no such subsidy and the Vandals won five Big Sky championships.The union's goal this time is much more modest: a simple request that athletics pay its fair share of the administrative fee. University Budget Committee member Jim Murphy agrees: "If my department in has to give 8 percent, then everybody else should pay 8 percent too."======================================================= List services made available by First Step Internet, serving the communities of the Palouse since 1994.              http://www.fsr.net         mailto:Vision2020 at moscow.com=======================================================
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