SUC plans to spend $100 million over the next decade on building and upgrading the following facilities
Priorities during the Salukis Unleashed initiative include the following construction:
Basketball practice facility, which not only benefits men's and women's basketball, but will allow volleyball to regularly play in the Banterra Center
Indoor football practice facility and new locker room space for both the home and away teams
Enhanced baseball clubhouse and training facility, including an indoor hitting facility
New stadium for Saluki Women's Soccer
Golf practice facility
Upgrades to Lingle Hall, Banterra Center, Charlotte West Stadium, and Shea Natatorium
Funny, I thought the 20+ million spent on Saluki Stadium and Banterra Arena was supposed to bring massive numbers of new students to campus.
Meanwhile, if too many people try to use their computers in Quigly Hall, circuit breakers trip on the electric system and the univeristy keeps rehiring SIUC faculty retirees because it is cheaper than bringing on new staff and the retirees already have benefits from their retirement plan.
Again, a complete waste of money that the BOT and higher administration should be held accountable for. Apart from the two-year freeze on hires, prohibitions on library purchases for this fiscal year, one elevator there out of order, and the moving shelves in the basement needing urgent repair plus the state of other buildings for educational purposes one wonders whether SIU is now worthy of a university status. The whole emphasis should be on teaching students and hiring and retaining good faculty, something that always seems on the lowest priority for this institution.
ReplyDeleteOne would think repairing existing infrastructure would come first.
ReplyDeleteNot with the present administration who are quite happy that buildings are deteriorating and heating and A/c often malfunction across campus, save Anthony Hall. The situation is getting really serious but all they think of are good looking sports facilities.
Delete"The whole emphasis should be on teaching students and hiring and retaining good faculty" Its 2023. This sentence is only true for current students. It has not been true for alumni and the general public for 50+ years. We dont live in fantasy world where the general public pay to attend a math lecture. We live in a country and world where sports is the primary mechanism to connect alumni who live hundreds of miles away from Carbondale with their school. Why do you think Illinois, Michigan, Alabama, Missouri and the sixty or so schools that make up the Power 5 conferences spend so much on sports? Universities are a business. Education is only part of their mission. There is no other entity that connects alumni with their school better than sports and the single best advertising method for a college is sports. The more graduates a school has the better it sports programs need to be because thats the main connection to the donor base. This is true even if we don't want it to be. SIUC now has tens of thousands of graduates. You don't connect with them by fixing old HVAC systems...which the state will eventually fix anyway.
ReplyDeleteI sadly realize that for you education is a "business". My comments relate to the students who are being cheated out of a good education because money is being wasted on sport rather than education and essential building maintenance and repair necessary for educational activities. If you think the State will "eventually fix" funding, then you are living in a dream world. State support has dwindled over the years resulting in high tuition and massive student debt which is already putting off the dwindling number of local students from attending high education. You have a "Babbit" mentality in stating that education is only "part" of a university mission. It should be central. Sport is not the main factor that attracts a good student to any university but the quality of its programs. Donations do not necessary go towards educational concerns. This is all the more reason why universities should not face public scrutiny and independent bodies set up to investigate whether education is given a low priority in terms of emphasis on sports which do not attract the best students. this was tried in the past and failed and there is every reason to believe that this rash spending will fail once again.
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