Next school year begins with a new course catalog. The catalog must be new as MSSU is trimming less than profitable academic programs from the catalog.

On April 29 and 30, the student body will vote on whether or not to institute a $4 per credit hour fee to give more money to the sports programs. The money is to buy scoreboards and party platforms. 

Next year will see the loss of several language programs, the philosophy minor, the Jeans lecture, but the decades-out-of-date science labs in Reynolds Hall remains. Yet the athletics department has the audacity to ask for a handout for what amounts to entertainment.

I am not opposed to having a sports program, but what I am opposed to is paying for someone else’s extra-curricular activities.  All students must ask themselves this question: Would a fee to subsidize the French club’s trip to Paris, or the clay used in the pottery club, ever have gone to a student vote, or would the proposal have died in the Student Senate?

The athletics department should face the same scrutiny as every other department on campus. If a sport is unprofitable, then cut it. I use profit as a metric for two reasons, one is that it is the same one used for all other programs. Furthermore, profit from games is used as justification for having a sports program.

I say if sports are profitable then they can pay for themselves and there is no need for a ROAR fund!