The old debate of “academics vs. athletics” has flared up once again at the University, thanks in no small part to the recent opening of the John E. Jaqua Academic Center for
Student-Athletes.
The lavish new facility, almost entirely paid for by University mega-booster Phil Knight, has drawn the ire of many professors for its athlete-only sections, its ties to Knight and recent claims that the building may fall well below its projected sustainability standards.
University associate professor of geography Peter Walker called the center “a symbol of this University’s wrong priorities.”
“This University has the lowest faculty salaries of any comparable university in the country, and the highest per-student-athlete expenditures,” Walker wrote in an e-mail. “That is more than a coincidence — it speaks to our University’s priorities, which have become backwards from what a quality university should be. Top-quality professors have been leaving this University for years because of the bad salaries. That hurts the quality of the education available to student-athletes and non-student-athletes alike. The irony is that we’re headed toward a five-star ‘Academic Center’ at Jaqua with a two-star academic program. That doesn’t benefit anyone, including the student-athletes.”
However, University spokesperson Phil Weiler said that, besides the new facility, there is actually little change to how the University serves its student-athletes.
“The services that are being provided in that building are required by the NCAA, and they’re services that we’ve been providing for years,” he said. “It’s a different and more visible location, but I would question whether there’s a change in accessibility.”
In fact, Weiler said the old student-athlete facilities, located in Esslinger Hall, were completely closed to non-athletes, meaning “there’s probably more opportunities to interact
than before.”
Weiler said the center would increase resources for the entire campus, since the classrooms, tutors and study spaces on the first floor would be available to all students and faculty.
The learning center was financed almost entirely by Knight and designed to his specifications. However, the University did agree to pay up to $666,000 in landscaping costs. The Register-Guard recently reported that the University also paid $200,000 to upgrade the building’s heating and cooling system.
Weiler said that none of the money used came from state or University general fund monies.
The Register-Guard also reported that initial estimates of the building’s energy efficiency fell well below Oregon’s State Energy Efficient Design standards, which require a building to be 20 percent more efficient than the regular building code.
The Oregon Energy Department’s analysis found the Jaqua Center to only be 7.7 percent more efficient than code.
However, Weiler said the energy department’s estimates were highly conservative and were compounded by the fact that the Jaqua Center, which is made mostly of glass, did not fit the department’s standard model used to calculate figures.
However, for all the talk of athletics superseding academics, the athletic department at the University is, for the most part, self sufficient.
A recent USA Today study on college athletics found that the University subsidized 2 percent, or $1,168,411, of the athletic department’s operating budget during the 2008-09 academic year. By contrast, Oregon State University subsidized 19 percent of its athletic department’s budget in 2008.
Nevertheless, many professors on campus refuse to be placated.
“Like many other professors with whom I have spoken, I am particularly disturbed (even outraged) that we — educators concerned for the development of all the students on this campus — are not even allowed to visit the upper floors of the building,” art history professor Jeffrey Hurwit wrote in an e-mail. “I believe any U of O student or teacher should be allowed to visit any building on this campus without an
obligatory tour guide.”

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