Club sports will remain a part of the Campus Recreation department next year, administrators said yesterday, despite previously being in danger of collapsing under the universitywide budget cuts.
As of March 29, Campus Recreation was asked to cut $366,000, or 7.6 percent, from its total budget of approximately $4.82 million. Doug Franklin, assistant dean of Recreation and Wellness, submitted a proposal last week that transferred the club sports program from the Campus Recreation budget. Currently, the 36 club sports are allowed $48,000 total and free use of practice areas and storage space, but if the clubs were no longer included in Campus Recreation, they would lose that privilege.
Franklin's decision sparked loud protests from some students who planned to attend Ohio University President Roderick McDavis' office hours today to ask the administrators to consider other options less devastating to club sports. Austin Cooperrider and Erich Hiner, both members of the fencing club, created a Facebook event for the rally that listed nearly 300 attendees, and an online petition that garnered more than 200 signatures.
But, Hiner, a former Post employee, cancelled the event once he learned Executive Vice President and Provost Pam Benoit asked Franklin to rework his proposal. The decision was announced yesterday in a campuswide e-mail from Campus Recreation.
Club sports would have been considered student organizations next year instead of being a part of Campus Recreation, and would have had to apply for funding from the Student Activities Committee, according to the proposal Franklin submitted last week.
Departments throughout the university cut their budgets for next year because of a $13.75 million hole in Ohio University's total budget. These cuts come as a result of reduced state funding.
Benoit rejected Franklin's budget cut proposal, asking that he submit an alternative proposal that has less impact on the student experience, said Becky Watts, chief of staff to McDavis. Anywhere from 800 to 1,000 students participate in club sports throughout the course of a year, Franklin said. He added that club sports raise approximately 80 percent of their budgets themselves through fundraising.
Franklin will submit another proposal sometime next week, he said.
We'll continue to chip around the edges and ... reduce some programming
Franklin said. We'll reduce hours when students are not using our facility. We'll try to balance that with some revenue generation and we will probably open up our facility during low-use times to the Athens Community.
During a meeting with Cooperrider and another member of the fencing team last Friday, Franklin suggested alternatives to renting space from Ping Center, such as practicing at the Athens Community Center and increasing membership dues.
Franklin also said he might be able to work out a deal to rent club sports students practice space for a lower cost, but added that he didn't want to give any one student organization a monopoly of services. According to Ping's website, practice rooms currently cost up to $50 an hour.
If we go to the community center students can't reach us Hiner said. If we hike dues
students won't want to participate.
Daniel Johnson, president of the Kendo club, said Kendo would not exist next year if students had to pay to rent practice space. Hiner added that equipment costs and practice space rental fees, in addition to lessened funding from the university, would cause some of the club sports to suffer internal bleeding until (they could) no longer function.
I think I speak for all club sports athletes when I say that the provost made the right decision
Hiner said. We're all excited to know that club sports will be alive next year
and available for all Ohio University students.
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Pamela Engel
