2008 Woodie Awards
Readers speak up on current athletic issues
Issue date: 4/25/08 Section: Sports
With the cost of tuition increasing this coming year, resulting in many upset students, offering a new facility would make the school anxious for the arrival of their new hang out.
Heidi Rupp
Focus on current problems before football returns
According to the Spring 2007 issue of the Pacific University magazine, the university is considering bringing back football, an endeavor that will require "some $1.25 million in start-up costs," not to mention what it would take to keep the program going. Shouldn't the university focus first on the space issue currently affecting everyone on campus, rather than potentially adding to the problem?
Reinstating the football program is expected to attract more male students in an effort to balance the male-female enrollment numbers, as Athletic Director Ken Schumann foresees. Enrollment has already increased from less than 2,300 students in 2001, as reported by the Oregon Student Assistant Commission Office of Degree Authorization, to more than 2,500 students last year, and despite the recent opening of the Burlingham residence hall, housing is not adequate.
I and a number of other students who would have liked to room on campus this year were turned away because all four dorms and the Vandervelden apartments were full. As the university intends to continue expanding student enrollment, even the opening of the new residence hall in Fall 2008 won't make much of a difference to those upperclassmen forced to procure outside housing arrangements.
For those students and teachers who commute by car, this new dormitory is more of a hindrance than a help. What used to be a parking lot is now a building, leaving the cars that would park there to roam the streets, stopping in front of neighborhood houses and taking spaces they shouldn't in a last minute dash before the start of class.
I understand that having a football program can raise school spirit, give a student a more solid connection to the university and therefore help to ensure more donations in the future, but compounding the lack of space and increasing tuition even more is not going to convince me to love Pacific any more. I would much rather the school focuses on solving the current problems before introducing any more complications.
Taryn Kagawa
Heidi Rupp
Focus on current problems before football returns
According to the Spring 2007 issue of the Pacific University magazine, the university is considering bringing back football, an endeavor that will require "some $1.25 million in start-up costs," not to mention what it would take to keep the program going. Shouldn't the university focus first on the space issue currently affecting everyone on campus, rather than potentially adding to the problem?
Reinstating the football program is expected to attract more male students in an effort to balance the male-female enrollment numbers, as Athletic Director Ken Schumann foresees. Enrollment has already increased from less than 2,300 students in 2001, as reported by the Oregon Student Assistant Commission Office of Degree Authorization, to more than 2,500 students last year, and despite the recent opening of the Burlingham residence hall, housing is not adequate.
I and a number of other students who would have liked to room on campus this year were turned away because all four dorms and the Vandervelden apartments were full. As the university intends to continue expanding student enrollment, even the opening of the new residence hall in Fall 2008 won't make much of a difference to those upperclassmen forced to procure outside housing arrangements.
For those students and teachers who commute by car, this new dormitory is more of a hindrance than a help. What used to be a parking lot is now a building, leaving the cars that would park there to roam the streets, stopping in front of neighborhood houses and taking spaces they shouldn't in a last minute dash before the start of class.
I understand that having a football program can raise school spirit, give a student a more solid connection to the university and therefore help to ensure more donations in the future, but compounding the lack of space and increasing tuition even more is not going to convince me to love Pacific any more. I would much rather the school focuses on solving the current problems before introducing any more complications.
Taryn Kagawa
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