Dear Editor,

The only folks that I can tell, that are in favor of the new athletic fee are either folks that benefit directly from the fee (i.e. student athletes) or those that don’t have to pay the fee. Why doesn’t ASUAF hold a vote to see what the student body-i.e. the fee payees—think of the fee? A large majority (over 66 percent) vote against the fee would make it clear that another alternative should be perused.

Suggested Alternatives:

A) Get rid of the basketball team. Current staff and players aside, this is not a team with a history that has served the University community well in the past. Replace it with a non-scholarship team that has a higher percentage of local (Alaskan) athletes. Wrestling would be a great choice.

B) Charge every student athlete $1000 to play. UAF students have to pay to be involved in intramural sports, so it is logical that all athletic participants should have to contribute to their love of the sport.

C) Return the recreation department to under the athletic department’s umbrella. T.V.C. has done a great job of making the rec. program profitable; why not have that profit go to the athletic dept. Institute a mandatory rec. class for all majors and the athletic dept. would soon be out of the red with the help of the rec. courses.

D) Stop offering scholarships and essentially gut the athletic department. UAF is and has always been a flagship research university and maybe the focus should be there.

E) Put the athletic coaches, staff and such on seven month salaries. They can work in canneries during the summer along many of the students who would suffer financial harm yet another fee.

Full disclosure-I teach recreation classes so I might personally benefit from suggestion “C.”

Jeff Benowitz
Ph.D Geology Student

Good articles by John Fox, Jessica Hill, and Lacie Grosvold regarding UAF’s new athletics support fee of $8 per credit. I keep trying to understand subsidized sports programs, especially when team traveling to the Lower 49 is so expensive and disruptive to academic class time.

John Fox writes that the athletic program attracts students who positively influence the community. He asks what would UAF be like without athletics, art, music, and theater. As a Fairbanksan, I have attended far more events at UAF in the art, music, and theater realm than in the athletic department. I am happy to voluntarily pay admission fees to events of my choosing.

I ask you: are UAF’s students also going to be asked to pay $66 a semester for the art department, $66 for the music, and $66 for theater? Doubtful. Apparently the arts don’t enhance our quality of life up here as much as hockey and the other sports. If the music department was given a $1.36 million dollar travel budget too, and students were involuntarily assessed an $8 per credit fee to support musicians, would columnists be writing about the caliber of international musicians studying here and the many benefits of a thriving musical community?

I applaud those students’ “wait a minute” sounds of alarm about extracting fees for the sports program. Keep up the excellent research and let us know how the discussion evolves.

Chena Newman
UAF Parent

Education is important to me. By learning, we enhance our lives and further society’s aims. To these ends, I attend college at the University of Alaska in Fairbanks.

It has come to my attention that you have approved an additional fee for the benefit of the student athletes and the department that supports them, coming at the expense of the general student body. Athletics are a part of healthy, active life, to be sure, but far greater benefit may be obtained through active participation in athletics than through sedentary participation.

You have made a decision that benefits a small group of people whose mission is tangential to that of an educational institution, and done so without seeking input from the students whom the decision affects. Neither, does it seem, have funding sources external to the university been fully explored, as admitted by Mr. Poole in the article by Ms. Hill and Grosvold in the most recent issue of the Sun Star.

I don’t understand why the budget problems of a small group within the greater campus community should be foisted upon the community at large, and wonder at the decision that would benefit those few, without regard to the needs of the community. I pay fees associated with laboratory classes that offset the cost of the facilities and supplies involved. Why not approve a fee that pays for lab classes, at the expense of the rest of the student body?

It is troubling that input has not been sought from those whom this fee would affect, and perhaps more troubling that the interests of those affected have been overlooked. For example: my interests would have been kept in mind if recreation courses were returned to the athletics department and a recreation course requirement was implemented as a way of increasing revenue for athletics. Admittedly, such a requirement would foment its own opposition among those who don’t like being told what to do, but the interest of the student body would be clearly in mind.

Instead of fostering an elitist approach to athletic activity, the policy would encourage widespread activity and a far greater diversity of student athletes. Rather than merely supporting as students a small number of athletes as students, such a policy would support a large number of students as athletes, and would help to support the NCAA program, thereby retaining the benefit of that program to the local community.

Joel Vonnahme
The Chancellor’s office has received this letter and is working on its response.