[Vision2020] Skewed Priorities or Business as Usual?

[Gier, Nicholas]

Hi Wayne:

I've written two columns on UI athletics and they can be found at www.class.uidaho.edu/ngier/athletics.htm  I did not focus on number of scholarships but I did find a some dollar amounts.  Full ride athletic scholarships (for I believe about 300 students) account for more than half the privately funded scholarships granted to UI students. Below you will find an excerpt from my second column.

Something I need to add to the column is the fact that athletic spending per student at UI ($917) is greater than the average of its conference the WAC($824), much larger than BSU ($593), and far greater than the PAC-10 ($359).

Here is the excerpt:

Since 1997 all UI departments have paid an administrative fee on all external funds to the central administration. The fee has now risen to 8 percent, but athletics only pays 3 percent. From 2001-2004 athletics paid no administrative fee at all, claiming that it had to reach gender equity goals, while all other units paid 5 percent. What is odd about this excuse is that UI athletics has received gender equity money from the Legislature, starting with $115,000 in 1997 and growing to $809,266 this year (FY09).
 
Many other departments could give much better reasons why they too should be exempt from this administrative fee. 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 fee.
        
The athletic department has also defended its low administrative fee by boasting it returns $2.5 million back to the university in tuition, fees, room and board for scholarship students. Over half these scholarships, however, are funded by the state. Private scholarship funds for all UI colleges total $4.1 million, so they have yet another good reason to have a lower administrative fee.

Nick
-----Original Message-----
From: Wayne Price [mailto:bear at moscow.com]
Sent: Thu 6/10/2010 8:28 AM
To: vision2020 2020
Cc: Gier, Nicholas
Subject: Skewed Priorities or Business as Usual?
 
This article that is in the Idaho Statesman  raises more questions  
than it answers.
First, why are we keeping a football coach that failed to meet the  
minimum NCAA Academic Progress Rate?
The national AVERAGE is 940, passing is 925. Every UW athletic program  
had a score of 948 or higher, and
even  all of Eastern Washington's athletic programs passed!
And think about this,  there will be 79 "scholarships" JUST FOR THE  
FOOTBALL TEAM, not the 85 they could have had!
How many (total) "sports/athletic"  scholarships are there if the  
football team alone gets 79/85??????????

For anyone on the Vision 2020 list with information about U of I,  how  
many scholarships, equal to the sports scholarships, is the U of I  
awarding
for Math? Physics? Biology? etc etc..........  Any thing you can add  
Nick?

The University is in a real hurt for funding, and it is my  
understanding that the Athletics Department has not participated in  
the across the board
reductions, and we get these kinds of results?  IF the University  
Administration is content with this kind of performance, why hasn't  
the Board of Regents
stepped in?

Time to clean up and clean OUT.



Idaho football sanctioned by NCAA
  - The Associated Press
Published: 06/09/10

BOISE, Idaho - The University of Idaho football team will lose six  
scholarships for failing to meet the minimum scores on the NCAA's  
annual Academic Progress Rate reports.
The APR measures classroom performance and is based on data collected  
over four years, in this case from the 2005-06 through 2008-09 years.  
The report was released Wednesday.
Programs must receive a score of 925 or above to avoid sanctions.
Idaho's football team received a 908 score, resulting in a one-year  
loss of six scholarships. The Vandals will operate with 79  
scholarships during the 2010 season, short of the maximum 85.


Read more: http://www.idahostatesman.com/2010/06/09/1224584/idaho-football-sanctioned-by-ncaa.html#ixzz0qSlnZVHv


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