I feel as though, to a certain degree, I must defend the John E. Jaqua Academic Center for Student-Athletes.
The popular outcry against the Jaqua Center — whose upper two floors are off-limits to all but the 515 Oregon student-athletes and their tutors — has been as important as it has been predictable. Students, community members and University staff alike are curious as to how, in a time of recession, the University and the athletic department are spending money. When the money comes from private donations, as the funds for the Jaqua Center did, those funds are and should be subject to scrutiny.
There’s a lot not to like about the Jaqua Center. It may not be up to environmental standards required by the Oregon Department of Energy, depending upon the title of the official you talk to. The University had to spend $866,000 on energy-saving alterations to the design (per The Register-Guard) and the state of Oregon will lose money off the building through tax breaks on the donated funds. It furthers the divide — intentioned or imagined — between Oregon student-athletes and Oregon students. It has a mirror etching of Phil Knight in a women’s restroom, which is creepy. If you’re not a fan of modern minimalist architecture like I am, you will find this building ugly.
The Jaqua Center serves a fundamental purpose: providing a clean and quiet atmosphere for student-athletes to receive tutoring outside of classes. In that sense, the building succeeds.
I asked a student-athlete recently about the Jaqua Center. He spoke highly of the aesthetics and technology implemented into the space, as well as some of the more unique design features. But he also — without prompting — told me how much student-athletes needed that kind of space.
“It’s so much better (than Esslinger Hall, site of the old tutoring center),” he said. “It was small and loud (at Esslinger). Nothing worked.”
Having seen the previous facilities at Esslinger, I completely agree. With no natural light and little space to move around, it was the kind of claustrophobic atmosphere most students (athletic scholarship or no) seek to avoid. The situation stood to improve, and it has.
Student-athletes have requirements that may seem insignificant to most — you get free tuition to play games? — until the full scope of the time commitment is understood. Practices and conditioning sessions take up anywhere from three to five hours a day. Competitions on the road eat up even more time that could be spent studying, usually whole weekends, but even several weekdays. Media sessions and publicity events may add on another hour a week.
Oh, by the way, these men and women have lives to live outside of class. Some have spouses and kids. Some partial-scholarship athletes have jobs.
The pressure to perform academically is, in theory, lessened by providing tutors outside of classes and the space to conduct tutoring sessions. This pressure increases when mom and dad’s eyes aren’t the only ones focused on scholastic performance.
Athletic administrators all share one obsession: Money. Within this obsession are four variables that determine how much money the athletic department receives: competitiveness, facilities, eligibility and scholastic achievement. Oregon has invested heavily in the latter three with the Jaqua Center.
Nevertheless, for how important this facility may be to the athletic department and the student-athletes under its supervision, I sense a missed opportunity. Not within the building; this goes further beyond.
I wonder what the University would look like with a larger tutoring center, maybe three or four times the size of the cube as presently constructed. This facility would be open to all students, with sections cordoned off for student-athletes and their tutors. All Oregon students in need of help with fundamental scholastic issues can come and enjoy quality instruction in an aesthetically pleasing space.
This might have been a reality, but for one man. No, not Phil Knight. For once, we can get off his case.
This man would be former University President Dave Frohnmayer, who continues to drastically shape the campus from the comforts of retirement. Frohnmayer never complained of private donors’ desire to fund eye-catching projects on his campus. He did, however, show a stunning and unbecoming lack of foresight toward the needs of the campus — and the athletic department — during the later years of his tenure.
Should you see Frohnmayer in the near future, please ask him why he couldn’t think bigger when it came to tutoring facilities. Surely, under his direction, he could’ve built a facility every student could be proud of.
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