Don't forget the students

The $15 million, 10-year agreement between the University of Arizona and PepsiCo. Inc. will deliver $3.4 million up-front toward the decrepit Memorial Student Union and an additional one-time $1.9 million payment for the athletic department's new strength and conditioning center.

During the course of the next 10 years, an additional $2.95 million will be pumped into the athletic department and Student Union, $50,000 a year of which will be spent on sorely underfunded student activities. The deal also retains a measure of consumer choice, reserving 15 percent of shelf space for other products.

A large soda contract has long been part of administration plans for funding the renovation of the Student Union and the cash influx is exactly the kind of money the university can use to help revive a community President Peter Likins has called "discouraged and somewhat fragmented."

The $50,000 annual student activity payoff, however, amounts to a tiny percentage of the revenue the UA stands to gain for giving Pepsi the keys to a captive audience dominated by students.

The UA Intercollegiate Athletic Department, for example, stands to make $3.8 million off the deal for its 500-student program, money that will stay in the quasi-independent department. Sure, a new strength and conditioning center might take some load off the Student Recreation Center, but will students really be able to tell the difference?

Comparing $50,000 and $3.8 million begs the question whether the interests of the student body at large were given enough consideration during the contract negotiations. For every dollar students spend on Mountain Dew, more than a quarter will go into athletic department coffers.

Questions also remain about where the rest of the money, including a $600,000 cut from vending machine sales, will go.

Moreover, one must ask if $50,000 annually is enough as the sole direct contribution to students themselves. Undeniably, a renovated Student Union will benefit the UA student body. Even the new athletic department strength and conditioning center would indirectly benefit students by taking extra strain off the Student Recreation Center. But if these projects are receiving millions of Pepsi dollars, why give only $50,000 and limit it to activities under the aegis of the Department of Student Programs?

Additional scholarships and financial aid come to mind as a worthy recipients, and that is but the tip of the iceberg. Opportunities abound on campus to improve students' quality of life. For example:

Campus parking: There's undoubtably room for improvment there.

UA Pavement: Why not sink some Pepsi funds into the potholes?

Classroom renovation: Perhaps even some windows in the Harvill building.

Likins has set forth campus life and financial aid as priorities of his administration, both indisputably necessary components of improving the university's undergraduate programs.

Given that, shouldn't administration negotiators have made a specific push to put Pepsi's money where their mouth is?

In the face of the CatCard controversy, even a $200,000 to $300,000 increase in scholarships and financial aid, not to mention still more activity funding, would have helped demonstrate that when the administration goes to the table offering student-service contracts to private businesses, it has the best interests of students at heart.