The John E. Jaqua Academic Center for Student-Athletes should be open to all. Transcend all of the rumors of failed green building policy, all of the offense taken to its lavishness, even the questionable nature with which its funding was procured for just a moment and focus on one thing: Chances are, you aren’t even allowed on the upper floors.
There is a building on campus, two-thirds of which is unavailable to the majority of the student populace, leaving only 2.23 percent of the student body with access to all three of the building’s floors. If you are not a student-athlete, you will be escorted down to the first floor and offered a tour. About 500 students are served by this building that doesn’t even match the rest of the aesthetics of the University. It is apart from the University: separated by roads, looks and the majority of students. Some might liken this to royalty; why did our school’s administration allow this to happen?
Everyone gives up some cost, whether personal, social or economic, to be a University student. So, it would seem that all students deserve the same sort of equal opportunity treatment at the school they attend. But student-athletes receive free one-on-one and group tutoring that sadly, the rest of us don’t receive. Instead, we are stuck with limited drop-in help desks and out-of-pocket tutoring sessions. This is perhaps the gravest offense.
Our athletes are already above average academically. According to the NCAA, graduation success rates at the University are higher than those at other colleges nationwide. The football program has a 53-percent graduation success rate compared to a 49-percent national rate. Men’s basketball has a 58-percent success rate compared to 50 percent nationally, and women’s basketball is at 93 percent compared to 71 percent nationally.
This building has created an upper class within our University, and it sends a clear message to the rest of campus: “If you can’t throw a football very far, you are not worth much.” What are the unwashed masses to do? Wallow in the squalor of antiquated structures and dimly lit warrens in basement sublevels, while the athletes sit high and mighty on their second and third floors, suspended over the names of famous athletes before them — who made their way to fame, mind you, without the use of a $15 million building? That is $30,000 dollars per student-athlete.
There’s simply no other explanation for why such a gross and unfair misuse of school resources has been allowed to happen. There’s no blame to be placed on the foresight of former president Dave Frohnmayer or current president Richard Lariviere, as has been suggested by letters to the editor and comments on the Emerald’s Web site. This issue is not about foresight; it is about priorities. And their priorities are not the masses.
Should we allow our school priorities to be dictated by Phil Knight, a man who donated against Measures 66 and 67, which are fundamentally good for the Oregon University System?
The epically wasted chance to better the entire school, student-athletes included, seems an affront to what places of higher learning should stand for on the most basic level. It is important not to forget that we are an academic institution first, and athletics are an aside. 
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