On Feb. 25, 26 and 27, ISU students will be asked to vote on whether they want a $50-plus million dollar renovation and construction done to the ISU recreation facilities, paid for by an increase in student fees. In short, it's a bad proposal. We hope students vote it down.
Of course, there are a lot of good reasons to renovate: State Gym is falling apart; Lied is too crowded at peak hours; our facilities are subpar compared to those of our peer institutions; it will be attractive to potential students and ideally increase, or at least stave off a decrease in, enrollment; it's important to the future of the university; etc.
And for the most part, the proposed recreation renovations are a great idea - few people would challenge that. But ultimately, students are getting the short shrift in the project. The sales pitch is glossy to the point of being dishonest, making all the students foot the bill for a few (and by hundreds of dollars a year, no less) isn't a fair way to pay for such a project, and the gray area of what will happen if students vote down the renovations is intolerable.
A sales pitch
It's curious to see where the momentum for this project comes from - it seems mostly to be from a small group of dedicated students who have a vision of how much more the rec can offer. Support for this project is high in the university's upper administration - Vice President for Student Affairs Tom Hill appears in the promotional video for the renovations supporting the project, and ISU President Gregory Geoffroy publicly came out in strong favor of the project. Finally, Director of Recreation Services Mike Harvey and Associate Director Garry Greenlee are also guiding this pitch across campus.
What they're offering is something grand - an Extreme Makeover, per the campaign - new climbing walls, a leisure swimming pool, a seemingly endless number of weight machines, air conditioning in the Lied, etc. To back it up, they've got a video and the Web site to prove it.
And this Web site, www.recrenovation.recservices.iastate.edu , is shiny. You've got the feasability study (which was based off only about a quarter of the student population), a one-page summary of what students will get, and an expansive photo gallery of recreation facilities at other schools - not necessarily what Iowa State is paying for or will be constructing.
It's beautiful, and it makes your imagination race - this could be us!
But nowhere is anyone making clear where these photos are coming from or how they'll relate to the ISU renovations, because no one knows for sure what the renovations will look like, as they haven't even begun looking for an architect. It's an emotional ploy, which certainly isn't new to advertising. But it's coming from the university - if this project is supposed to be for the students, why are they trying so hard to sell it to us?
Fuzzy numbers
Initially, no one connected with the project really seems to want to discuss how much money this project will cost. For the first two years, once construction begins, it will be $20 per semester. Following that - and for the remaining 25 years of the bond that will be issued to pay for the renovations as they happen - the student fee increase will bump to $214 per year. And that might not be the final number - Rec services director Mike Harvey said the $107-per-semester fee could increase as prices inflate over the next two decades.
How deep do students' pockets go?
The Iowa Board of Regents has requested a 3.2 percent tuition increase for in-state students for the 2008-09 school year - a $172 increase. In comparison, the student fee increase is nearly 4 percent of this past year's tuition. Who thought the day would come when we paid more for our weight machines than our education?
To be fair, the $107 fee increase wouldn't kick in for another three or four years - when it won't be as significant a proportion of tuition. But for all of the Government of the Student Body's work in lobbying the Iowa Legislature to minimize tuition increases, President Brian Phillips keeps a strange bedfellow in endorsing something even more extravagant.
Of course, this doesn't address the most fundamental question: Why is this coming from student pockets?
Recreation Services has a canned line for why this project has to fall on student fees: It's the only way to get the money. The state won't fully fund our academic requests, let alone leisure ones. The athletic department - which uses all three of the facilities in question - has a master plan to eventually move its practice courts away from the facilities, so their help is out of the question. The ISU Foundation is already working on another multimillion dollar fundraising campaign, so we can't get their help. And by all accounts, it's difficult to find private donors for these types of projects. Clearly, increasing students' fees has to be the way to go.
That can't be the answer.
Sure, student fees could be a component of paying for this project. But to have them bear the entire burden - especially since so many simply won't use the renovations, or since many of them are satisfied with the facilities we have now - is an easy way out.
Some of these requests are simply extravagant - air conditioning in Lied, for example. Certainly it would be nice to have, especially on sweltering summer days, but it's a luxury, especially considering so many dorms and buildings on campus don't have it.
And having the maintenance on State Gym fall into students' hands is a copout. Yes, the building is in ugly shape right now.
But since when did millions of dollars of the university's deferred maintenance get put on the students' tab? And why should we trust the university to build new buildings when it refuses to keep up with maintenance on older ones? Case in point is Morrill Hall, and the university found donors to take care of its mess there. Harvey assured us that letting a building get to crumbling stages wouldn't happen again, but it's a hard promise to swallow.
If the university wants to increase student fees, why don't they update classrooms? Computers? Technology? More pay for better instructors? Do something that will enhance the university part of Iowa State University - give us an education that will set us up for the real world.
What's next
If the student body votes for the rec renovations, it's clear what chain of events will unfold. Other university councils and senates will vote on it. All these results will be passed onto Geoffroy. He'll make a recommendation, and it will move to the Board of Regents. If the regents OK it, it will happen.
However, if the student body votes down the measure, things get foggy. Harvey told the Daily that their current plans are contingent on students' approval of the measure. If students vote against it, however, they've got nothing. Harvey added that the ISU administration would nevertheless still have a conversation about the renovations' future.
Geoffroy doesn't necessarily need student approval - though we're sure he'd like it - to ask the Board of Regents to approve the fee increase. By no means would we expect him to go ahead with that. But it's likely that the renovations would be revisited - hopefully the maintenance issues and fundraising addressed - before this vote is presented to the students again in a couple of years.
In the end
Some bias has to be admitted by the editorial board - of the seven of us, we've maybe used the rec a dozen times collectively this past year, although several of us were frequent users in the past. It's hard to get excited about something none of us will be here to use, and something we'd be unlikely to use if we were here.
However, this situation is not uncommon for so many students. Many off-campus living areas offer free membership to another fitness club in town - why should they be paying extra for a facility they won't use? This doesn't even count the number of students who don't work out, or those who work out occasionally - or even frequently - and are satisfied with the current offerings.
Ultimately, this project could do a lot for the ISU campus. However, such an increase in student fees is not the way to go about it. It's simply short-sighted - not to mention devoid of creativity - to so significantly raise student fees.
Not only do we encourage students to vote against these renovations on Feb. 25, 26 and 27, we demand the university listen to the students' consensus on this matter. There's no point in letting the students have a voice if they plan to mute it when it matters anyway.
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