As a student living off of financial aid no job, I can appreciate the fact that time are tough financially. Schools are in general tightening their belts and trying to more with less. So it is not surprising to me that the people are taking issue with Wright State’s $450K athletic complex that includes includes football field.
According to the DDN, teachers are calling it “excessive”. Faculty appeared concerned that the school is not investing as heavily in teacher salary and benefits as they are in a sports complex that they feel will be used by a limited number of people. University professors are accusing administrators of having “misplaced priorities” for building the field while attempting to hold down faculty pay, according to the article.
Professor of economics and chief negotiator for WSU’s professors union, Rudy Fichtenbaum is quoted as saying the following, “I think the fact that right now when times are tough and the administration is saying that there’s not enough money for raises and other things, that to be spending money on something like a football field at this time is certainly not a good use of university resources. The core mission of our institution is first and foremost to educate students, and second, to be involved in research.”
I realize that it stinks that WSU offered teachers a contract that provided no raises for the next two years and it stinks that the things like healthcare would increase. Here is the problem: WSU needs football.
Why?
Football is a powerful recruiting tool for colleges. The more students you have the more money you have coming into the school. And with that hopefully, this means that in the near future they can offer better incentives to their faculty. Students do look at costs and availability of the major they want. They also look at the social life and extracurricular activities such as sports.
As of right now, the WSU football team is only a club team. This means, apparently we are not members of the NCAA. I don’t know much about football, but maybe having our field will put us closer to being a national ranked team. Because everything thing I have heard about college football, is that there is big money in it. And the sooner that money come rolling in the better.
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