Students organize against new recreation fees
As student elections draw near, a new group on campus aims to get out the vote against additions and increases to student fees. Students from across the political spectrum formed Students Against Academic Waste, said Mikey Rodgerson, president of the USU College Republicans.
The group’s main focus for now is a new campus recreation fee, Rodgerson said. The fee will likely appear on the ballot in the student elections this spring and will pay for the installation of artificial turf on the fields west of the HPER Building and a new student recreation building.
“(We) felt like we’ve been abused in past student fees — like the school has really pushed them on us — and really felt like we wanted to stand up and do something about it,” Rodgerson said.
Rodgerson said students he’s spoken to have complained about the athletics fee and the Blue Goes Green fee.
“It feels like, as I’ve talked to students, they have felt pushed around by one group or another,” Rodgerson said. “It feels like each fee alienates a lot of people, but it only benefits a few people.”
The USU College Democrats are also part of the SAAW coalition. College Democrats President Laura Anderson said the club thinks there are better ways to use a new fee.
“We feel like all of that money and our student fees could go to something better, like perhaps giving tenure to a professor instead of a turf field,” Anderson said.
Rodgerson said SAAW is planning to reach out to other clubs at the university by emailing club presidents and by sponsoring campus events. The group is planning a protest dinner on Feb. 1, which is open to all clubs and students and will feature sandwiches, poster-making and an arm wrestling competition between club representatives, Rodgerson said. SAAW coordinators plan to sponsor other events, Rodgerson said, but details will be announced later.
If the proposed recreation fee passes a vote by the Fee Board on Jan. 19, it will be on the ballot in the student elections on Feb. 28 and March 1, said ASUSU President Erik Mikkelsen.
The proposed fee is $30 per student per semester for two years and will increase to $75 per student per semester when the planned Aggie Recreation Center opens, Mikkelsen said. The projected fee amount doesn’t take potential private donations into account and therefore the fee may be lower if private donors help pay to add to USU’s recreational facilities.
Students have felt the need for a new rec center for roughly a decade, Mikkelsen said. Students passed a similar proposal about 10 years ago, he said, but the proposal did not pass a vote by the state Legislature, which felt the center would create competition with local businesses.
Kevin Kobe, director of campus recreation, said the push for new facilities 10 years ago didn’t get the results students wanted.
“What we got out of it was the second floor of the Fieldhouse, that little fitness center over there,” Kobe said regarding the effort to update recreational facilities 10 years ago. “They’re crawling on each other over there. It’s tight. It’s dangerous, because you don’t have enough room for that many people.”
While the decision is ultimately up to the students, Kobe said campus recreation often has to turn students away because facilities aren’t sufficient to meet demand.
“It’s like so many kids want to play in the sandbox that we want to make the sandbox as big and as burly as possible, because it’s going to get hammered so much,” Kobe said.
The installation of artificial turf will let more students use the fields adjacent to the HPER Building, Kobe said. Artificial lighting and the possibility of snow removal will increase the number of days the fields are available, he added.
Scott Wamsley, assistant director of campus recreation, said the department often has to turn away intramural teams due to limited field availability.
“Just this last fall, we had to turn away at least 24 intramural soccer teams,” Wamsley said. “At 15 players per team, on average, you’re looking at 300-400 (players turned away) just in soccer, because we’ve had no fields.”
Wamsley said the turf will also reduce the amount of effort Facilities would need to expend to maintain fields.
“We can’t keep using the Quad, or the Quad isn’t going to be lush and pretty like they want it to be,” Wamsley said. “You send out 30 or 40 flag football teams or soccer teams, and after a while it’s just going to take a beating. We just need the space.”
Rodgerson said students don’t need a new fee to meet their recreational needs.
“If we were able to keep our money, then we’d be able to use it in the local economy, in Logan itself,” Rodgerson said. “Then we’d have more opportunity to have different things in the city to do. I feel like entertainment would be better if it just wasn’t done by the school itself.”
Mikkelsen said the fee shouldn’t be seen as something imposed by the Administration.
“The important thing to realize about projects like this is it’s not the Administration trying to impose fees on all the students and coming down with an iron fist,” Mikkelsen said. “It’s really students proposing this for students, and then students have a choice in whether or not to accept it.”
“If the students don’t want it, we’ll just bag the whole idea,” Mikkelsen said.
If the plan proposal is adopted, the new facilities will be available before students start paying the fees, Mikkelsen said. The artificial turf will be installed before the $30 fee is instituted, while the new recreation center will be open to students before the $75 fee takes effect, he added.
Kobe said many of the students he talks to express the desire for new facilities.
“They just constantly are like, ‘What is going on with the facilities around here? These things are so outdated and so ancient and why do I have to work out next to my old chemistry professor and see him in the locker room? We want our own place.'”
Rodgerson said he hopes SAAW’s efforts will prompt students to think about the fee before voting.
“We hope people won’t just go through and click yes.”
– steve.kent@aggiemail.usu.edu