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This may be the season for giving, but the elves in the UA funding department need to discriminate between nice and naughty spending projects. The stockings of two recent programs have been filled to the brim while areas at the university worthy of funding must again settle for coal.
One of these programs, the installation of cable in UA residence halls, is a perfect example of misappropriated funding. A whopping $832,000 is being spent to bring the gift of VH-1 and The Weather Channel. While students may want their MTV, watching Dan Cortese is hardly worth the price.
The creation of an accurate campus map to solve drainage problems is another stocking unworthy of being filled. For some reason, the university feels rainwater runoff is such a severe problem that the $200,000 cost of the study is justified.
The fault does not lie in spending money on these programs. The problem is that Santa has only so many presents and his dutiful elves are not grasping the concept of prioritization. Too many vital areas of the university are being neglected while the UA throws this money down the drain.
The $832,000 cost to enjoy Nick at Nite should be spent for access to books at night. Current UA library hours during the weekend are just plain pitiful. Many universities, such as Duke and Stanford, shame the library availability at the UA, which prides itself as a Research I university. Carla J. Stoffle, library dean, says keeping the library open an additional six hours on Friday and Saturday nights would cost $30,000 a year. That is less than 4 percent of the money appropriated to shuttling House of Style into residence halls.
Computer labs are also ailing from a lack of availability. The Memorial Student Union computer lab is closed all Saturday and until 3 p.m. on Sundays. The Park Student Union, Business Information Center, and Graduate Computing Labs all close at or before 10 p.m. every day. These are crucial days and times for students who don't have home computers, but do have heaps of homework. Those who need to burn the midnight oil in the computer lab will not find the midnight movie very comforting.
Another empty stocking that should be filled is the sport club budget. The annual $15,000 given to sports clubs was reduced to $10,000 this year and will be eliminated completely next year. While $200,000 prevents students from getting their feet wet, sport clubs, which directly represent the university, won't even receive a lump of coal.
The elves in control of UA funding must attend to these empty stockings. While topographic drainage maps and Monty Python marathons may be constructive, library and computer access is critical. Even sport clubs could be attended to by scraping a few dollars off of these financially bloated programs. Cable programs and dry streets are poor substitutes for books and computers. Santa's elves in the funding department better realize this, for sooner or later, UA students will tire of settling for coal.
Editoral Staff
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