If you read the paper this morning, you may might be as disturbed as I was
to learn that "university officials" may ask for a fee "regardless of the
outcome."  One television station even reported last night that students
have already approved the fee. Chuck Cantrell has corrected that and it
will be mentioned tonight that students can vote Friday. Still, with the
elections still going on, what message does this send to students? Vote,
but if it is a no, you are wasting your time.

And time is a factor during exam week. Having such a vote when students are
not here every day except to take exams, was not right in the first place.
The issue was also not in support of the entire sports program as stated,
nor really about equity and Title Nine, but to plug the annual hole in the
football budget and perhaps to create more "off budget" funding for the new
basketball training building.

Note too that if this fee is imposed, the $1.2 million increase in the
sports budget (I understand that about half of the current fee goes to
athletics) will be a much, much larger increase there (a total budget of
$7.3 million is possible) than the possible increase in the academics
affairs budget, which may be enhanced by an instructional enhancement fee
and a 9.5% tuition increase, for a total of $1.77, which is more than the
possible increase in sports funding, but much less a percentage.

If this is truly the case, the last Budget Committee of the year on April
30 will reveal the reality behind the rhetoric about priorities. And our
students who bothered to vote will have learned a valuable lesson about
democracy that they can take away from UTC.

Richard