LETTER: Arts deserve the same privilege
To the editor:
This is in response to the articles, by Jepson and Barlow, in the Statesman (Feb. 2) about the proposed $5 increase in student fees for the Caine College of the Arts. Whether you prefer to watch teammates work together to create a great play or musicians work together to create beautiful music, you are far more likely to attend the event if it is free of charge. That is the spirit of student fees – you pay a lump sum at the beginning of the semester, forget about it, and then attend campus events for free with your student ID.
If I read correctly, this proposed fee increase would ensure student entrance to performances, just as other fees ensure student entrance to sporting events. Barlow made it sound like the student body would be paying for the art students’ paintbrushes. Also, it is not “safe to assume” that the Athletics fee pays for all the costs associated with the Fieldhouse and HPER facilities. There is a separate Building fee and a separate Campus Recreation fee that each student pays in addition to the Athletics fee.
In Jepson’s article, it was mentioned that instead of a fee increase, the student fee board “felt it would be fair to have the students who attend the performances help shoulder the cost, rather than charging students generally.” But wait, each typical student pays $123.22 a semester for the privilege of getting into sporting events, whether you attend every time, once in a while, or never. Shouldn’t the College of the Arts have the same privilege of letting all students, if they choose, come to performances without paying at the door? Or, in the name of equity, shouldn’t the students who attend the games help shoulder the cost, rather than charging students generally?
Currently the Athletics fee makes up 30 percent of the $400+ spent by poor college students each semester, while the Music and Theater fee is costing each student a whopping $6.84, a mere 2 percent. For humanity’s sake, let the College of the Arts have an extra $1.75, or even $5.00. I’d rather pay for paintbrushes anyway. After all, “some of us like sports, but not all of us.”
Kenneth Bennion