For the past couple years, the majority of the athletics department at SOU has been funded through the student fee. Currently, the student fee sits at $286 per term for full time students. This is the highest student fee in all of Oregon, yet we are one of the smaller schools in Oregon. Full-time students at Oregon State University pay $250 per term and full-time students at the University of Oregon pay $195 per semester.
For the 2009-2010 school years the Student fee pays 46.97 percent of the Athletic department while the University General Fund pays 12.51 percent. These numbers must change in order to secure athletics at SOU for the upcoming year. As the budgeting process takes flight at SOU, many options are being heard to try and change this extrordinarily large difference in support between the student fee and the general fund.
Some of the plans being generated include a five-year plan for the general fund to take over some of the items currently assessed by the student fee, with the goal of decreasing the fee while improving the campus life and involvement. This plan has not yet been in effect or completely planned out and will need student voices to help generate ideas on where to go with this plan. If you are interested in helping design the five-year plan, we welcome you to contact student government (visit www.assou.net or e-mail assougov@gmail.com).
Currently SOU has 5,624 students; around 300 of them are athletes. The tuition that the athletes bring to the SOU campus is $2,536,899, yet the general fund only contributes $290,366 to Athletics. Where is this department headed?
For the past couple months, the Athletics Task Force, a group of students and administrators, has been discussing in great detail the pros and cons of both staying in the NAIA conference and going to NCAA. This task force will make a recommendation to the SOU President Mary Cullinan with the students in its greatest interest. President Cullinan will then make the final decision in staying in the NAIA conference or moving to NCAA.
If students could convince the administration to fund 30 percent of the Department of Athletics at its current budget, it would decrease the student fee involvement to 29.48 percent of the total Athletics budget, which is more equal. If the administration does not step up in this situation, we may be forced to cut intercollegiate teams as well as clubs teams to be able to budget appropriately for the Athletics Department.
Stephen Land is the athletic senator for the Associated Students of Southern Oregon University.
