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Since you can’t turn your head without hearing the words “budget crisis,” we’ll assume you’ve heard about the cuts in funding to various departments on campus. Since the problems began, some faculty even raised the question of cutting back funding for athletics. And this Thursday, the faculty voted to “urge the school to stop subsidizing its money-losing athletics department as soon as it legally can.”
Now take heed—this doesn’t mean that the football team is going be thrown unceremoniously from the gravy train. The legal part makes everything much more difficult. The Chancellor himself noted that contracts don’t expire for a few more years, so the university will “continue to help the department stay afloat.”
It just means that they’re looking now for a way to make the athletics department self-sufficient. And yes, that could mean cuts to athletic teams.
Professors already seething from earlier cutbacks are not kind to athletics funding. Michael O’Hare, a professor at the Goldman School of Public Policy, put it this way: “The university is about values of scholarship, teaching and the arts, not swimming, running and haute cuisine.”
Them’s fightin’ words. Use your own and sound off in the comments below.
Image source: Neubie under Creative Commons
UC Berkeley faculty endorse cut in athletic aid [San Francisco Chronicle]
Earlier: To Subsidize or Not to Subsidize
Tags:athletic department, budget cuts, fighting words, Robert Birgeneau, subsidizing athletics
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