The Athletic Department and University Administration are confident there will be 12,000 more screaming Duck fans on hand for the kickoff of the 2003 football season now that they’ve been given the green light by the Eugene City Council to move ahead with their plans for expanding Autzen Stadium.
Some faculty members, however, are not pleased with the University’s dogged determination to put both the effort and financial resources into the $80 million project.
Dave Williford, director of media services, said he expects the expansion to be completed by the expected date now that the University has received approval for the transit station.
“At this stage, yes,” he said. “That was a major hurdle, yes, but so far, so good.”
He said the next stage of the project will include some infrastructure improvements to the building and the construction of new ticket booths, though the University must get through a long line of permits before it can begin any of the work.
Dan Williams, vice president for administration, also said he is confident the project will be completed both on time and under budget. He said through his experience with the Casanova Center building project and other major capital campaigns, he is optimistic there won’t be problems.
“We’ve never failed to meet our obligations,” he said.
Williams said the University has up to $19 million in bonds to float the construction project while charitable pledges are paid off, and he expects donations to continue to come in for the project. The current stage of construction will cost about $10 million, he said.
Once the project is done, Williams said, it will be enough of a financial gain for the Athletic Department so the University won’t have to worry about covering the department’s high cost or increasing ticket prices.
But James Earl, president of the University Senate and an English professor, argued that the project was “an interruption of the educational mission” at the University and was a poor choice of funding.
Though he said he can’t speak for every faculty member at the University, Earl did say many have expressed similar concerns to him over the project.
“By my experience, the faculty is almost solidly skeptical about the need for athletic expansion,” he said.
However, Earl said this was only one example of the national debate going on at universities, where educators and athletic departments have squared off over the need for costly upgrades and investments in sports programs.
Daniel Pope, head of the history department, said he was “not too crazy about the idea” of the stadium expansion. He questioned the need for the University to be making such a financial commitment to athletics, especially when state budget cuts appear likely for higher education.
Pope said it was hard for him to take a real stand on the issue because he questions the need but is also a Duck fan who regularly attends football games.
Williams said the funds going into the expansion were all specifically designated by donors for the project.
“The resources going to that expansion would not have been going to the instructional budget,” he said.
And while millions have been raised for the Athletic Department, Williams said $250 million has been raised for the academic institutions of the University.
“Many of the major donors [for athletics] are also significant donors to the academic side of the institution,” he said.
Richard Sundt, an associate professor of art history, was critical not only of the large amount of funding going into Autzen Stadium expansion, but also of the Athletic Department in general.
“It’s like athletics can never be cut,” he said. “They can get whatever they want.”
He also found fault with what he viewed as a huge disparity between coaches’ and professors’ salaries, which he said only placed more of an emphasis on athletics rather than education. Sundt said he didn’t want more money, but he wants to see the University scale back its spending on the Athletic Department so other departments don’t suffer.
“We’re down the food chain, down at the bottom in academics,” he said. “The faculty is asked to [teach] students with less funding.”
Sundt also questioned the sustainability of the Athletic Department’s projects because of the high cost it takes to keep an athletic department competitive at the national level.
“As soon as we finish Autzen, there’s another huge project to do,” he said. “While the expansion will make money, it won’t last very long.”