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| Protestors disheartened
by BOT desicion |
David Forbes
SGA Beat
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Adam Bennett| The AppalachianJunior music education major Wendi
A. Barber from Weddington studies Wednesday on the rear entrance
steps of B.B. Dougherty.
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Sitting in the small
crowd at the Broyhill Inn & Conference Center among journalists,
police and other observers, were eight students who had come to
the Board of Trustees (BOT) meeting in protest.
In the end, the students watched as the BOT voted
in favor of the athletic fee proposal they had come out to oppose.
The reaction among many of the student protestors was anger and
disappointment.
“[The Board] says it cares about students,
but students are saying ‘I don’t want this, we don’t
want this, we don’t need this,’ then that means don’t
increase it for that reason,” said Jennifer Johnson, a freshman
from Ashe County.
“I’m disheartened that the board didn’t
listen to students at all,” said Alison L. Laffin, a Student
Government Association (SGA) off-campus senator and one of the organizers
of the protest. |
The proposed
athletic fee increase will go to fund expansion and renovation of
Owens Field House and other varsity athletic facilities. The students
who opposed it cited reasons of priorities, notably a lack of funding
for other programs on campus.
“I feel very strongly that student fees should
go to something that’s going to benefit all the students. While
the rest of the university is taking cutbacks, athletic facilities
aren’t a priority right now,” said Gayathri Vijayagopalan,
a junior accounting major from Charlotte.
“I have real issues of taking the money,
when it’s not a necessity, to pretty much put it towards the
football team,” Johnson said. “I feel they should stop
it somewhere. Our health services is not large enough to handle
everything it needs to handle; I think that’s a bigger issue
than building the football team up.”
“This is wasteful. Football loses money because
of all the expenses,” said Ashley N. Laws, a junior marketing
major from Hickory. “I feel like the people pushing for the
athletic fee don’t really care about students.”
Vijayagopalan, Johnson and Laws heard about the protest from the
Women’s Center and at a booth in W.H. Plemmons Student Union
set up by several SGA senators.
SGA President Ryan M. Eller, along with Dr. Paul
H. Gates, Jr., chair of Faculty Senate, spoke against the fee increase
at the meeting.
SGA and Faculty Senate both passed resolutions
condemning the increase.
Eller also yielded the floor to individual students
to speak their opinions.
I’m an individual, I cannot claim to speak
for all, but there are students who care and want to have a say
in whether or not a fee is approved. We’re the ones who contribute
these fees, after all,” said H. Dustin Bayard, off campus senator
and one of the organizers of the protest.
Eller said the situation reminded him of the Biblical
story of David and Goliath.
“I have a lot of sympathy with David and
feel like we’re in like circumstances. I feel like I’ve
come up against sort of a Goliath, people who are older than I am,
have more experience and certainly more money,” Eller said.
“Everyone knows that, economically, students are hurting. We
need to question how much people can afford. Owens Field House has
such things going into it as a Hall of Fame room, things most would
consider a luxury. What type of message are we sending to students
when we increase only athletics?”
“Students on this issue feel like the decision
has already been made,” Eller said. “We cannot continue
[the] trend of listening to students but not acting on what they
say.”
Despite the student protest and lobbying, all
voting members except for Eller were in favor of the athletic fee
increase.
In the past week, Bayard and Laffin have run an
effort to get students out to the protest including fliers, brochures
and a contact booth in the student union.
Laffin said she was very disappointed at the low
turnout, something she attributed to the snowy weather and also
to student motivation.
“A lot of senators are spineless. They need
to take a stand instead of just sitting there and watching a few
people take one side or the other. I think that’s why a lot
of them didn’t show up today.” Laffin said.
“I think a lot of the low turnout was due
to the inclement weather. We had a lot of student support, a lot
who said they were going to turn out didn’t, and I think the
weather was the reason,” Bayard said. |
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