On Wednesday night, Randon Coffey, the director of athletics marketing and  corporate sales, proposed the ROAR fund to Student Senate.

The ROAR (Recharging Our Athletics and Recreation) fund would impose a $4 per credit hour charge on students that would be used to improve athletic facilities.

“When you take a look around our conference, every single school but Southern has an athletic fee that results in large amounts of money for athletic programs at the other schools,” said Coffey.

Coffey compared Southern primarily with Pittsburg State, Southern’s biggest rival, and Missouri Western. Coffey said Pittsburg State imposes a $150 per semester fee on every student. Missouri Western doesn’t charge its students quite as much, placing a $5 per credit hour charge that caps out at $60.

“We want to give students two tickets to come out and watch each sporting event,” Coffey continued. “The students will also get $2 of concession stand credit for each game.”

Four projects were listed as the primary reason behind Coffey’s request to let this proposal go to a student vote. The athletics department wants to add a video board at the football field, improve the current soccer field to turf, improve the lighting and sound system in Leggett & Platt and assist the band with getting new uniforms.

Senator Cory Garr said, “So many entities say ‘we will do this, this and this,’ but how do we know it won’t take 10 or 15 years to get these projects done?”

Coffey said the money would be used to accomplish the tasks as soon as possible.

Senate will vote to either allow or prevent the ROAR fund to go to a student vote next week.

In other business, Senate approved funds of $3,135 to be contributed to advancing the tunnel mural.

Six new members were elected to Senate on Wednesday night. The new members fill all but two of the vacant seats on the Senate.

Of the six members who took over seats, two were absent and another had to leave early. For more information on the recently elected Senators, check next week’s issue.