Caught SIU President Dan Mahoney on WSIU this morning talking about campus free speech but I was interested by what he had to say about the new $100 million investment in sports facilites on campus. As I have pointed out, he said that although sports can be a big component of student life during their time at college, not a lot of students, save athletes, come to campus because of the sports progams. Of course, top tier colleges with massively funded sports programs may get more PR and attention from students considering a college but a university like SIUC or SIUE, that does not get invited to play in Bowls regularly will rarely get national metion.
I have taught at SEMO for two decades and make it a point to survey my students as to why they chose the school. The only ones that ever mentioned sports were those that came on a scholarship. Overwhelmingly, the reasons were location, price, major offered, finacial aid. Never the sports program
Exactly and this is why SIUC is going downhill and taking Carbondale with it. From the business perspective mentioned by a previous poster, the Athletics program loses $1, million annually and the current deficit would be enough to close it down in the business world. If lawmakers are now investigating Ivy League universities, it is now high time that a national state committee be set up to investigate SIUC administration and why they are allowing education and declining infrastructure to collapse further while spending money on inessential items while students suffer as a result of their mismanagement. Carbondale will also become another Cairo if this state of affairs continues.
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