In the heart of Ohio University's campus is a garden. In the company of herbs, flowers and fruiting shrubs, it is a place to relax and study in tranquility. The greenhouse adjacent grows all of the live plant material for students of the life sciences.
Now, with budget cuts, the axe is at the root, and in a few years, this useful and paradisiacal place will be a parking lot.
Questioning the wisdom of this decision? I question paying an invulnerable and increasing $15.3 million a year on Intercollegiate Athletics.
According to the athletes' presentation at a recent Future OU forum, we are at the cusp of falling from maintaining a Division I school, which is the highest in prestige and the most exciting for sports fans. Seeing the quality of our education erode as tuitions and fees increase and faculty are cut infuriates me. And as a hipster, I couldn't care less about the prowess of our football or basketball teams. Watching heroic athletes on television was never a part of my culture, and it won't be a part of my childrens'. Being physically fit is foundational to our youth's intellectual development and spiritual formation.
However, as a culture, we need to get off our collective couch and bike, run, swim or whatever you like to keep your endorphin levels up. Stop trying to vicariously live through our Super Bowl champions; it will never work. At the very least, stop making me pay for it.
Badger Johnson is a junior studying applied ecology.
4 Opinion
