The latest dispute over private donations is being waged, this time in the wake of an announcement that a new academic learning services center for athletes would be built on campus by Nike co-founder and University donor Phil Knight’s private development company. At the core of the dispute is a decades-old debate over what role athletics plays on campus.
Student athletes currently use a series of offices and small computer labs in an aged complex adjacent to McArthur Court for academic advising and tutoring. By most accounts the conditions there are serviceable – but just barely.
Knight’s development company plans to break ground on the corner of Agate Street and Franklin Boulevard in July, and hopes to finish construction by summer of 2010. If the completed product in any way resembles what is currently being envisioned, the center will be nothing short of a Mecca for students and student athletes alike. Thirty-five thousand square-feet, three floors (the top two of which will be restricted to student athletes only), computers, laptops, a cyber café and reflection pool are all part of the plan.
But much like last year’s decision to fund a new basketball arena, the athletic center is drawing fire from those who say Phil Knight and other private donors are shifting focus and money away from academics, where it belongs.
No one can deny that the welfare of our student athletes will be enhanced by a newer, up-to-date learning center. But this proposal goes way beyond up-to-date: It is undeniably extravagant. And while nothing is wrong with that fact in itself, academic and athletic administrators should both be concerned by the image our school is perpetuating. By the fall of 2010 there could be two massive new testaments to athletics within a two-block radius of each other – not to mention the new baseball stadium going up across the river. Hundreds of millions of dollars will have been spent – mostly by Knight – to make this happen. Students and faculty will lose at least 178 parking spaces, but will gain a symbolic representation of their University’s marketability.
It’s no secret Knight likes sports. It’s also no secret he has a lot of expendable income, and chooses to donate large amounts of money to the University – and not just to the athletic department. For this fact the University is indebted to him. Nevertheless, we should not let individuals decide what projects are in the best interests of students here. The welfare of all students supercedes the interests of any particular group, and the impetus for improvements should come from within the University itself.
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