Several questions garnered loud applause, including that of senior political science major Avrell Stokes, who said that it is his understanding that athletics received the cut it did ($137,000), because a deeper cut would have meant athletics being lowered a division.
“What I would like to know is who made the decision to cut education rather than to go down a division in athletics and why?” asked Stokes, as his fellow students clapped.
University of Southern Mississippi students confront hapless administrators at an open meeting. They got the same bullshit answer to this question that administrators always give: Big-time sports make universities ever so much better!
Oh, and about the plane the university leases:
Saunders explained that the reason for the plane is to maximize administrative time.
Administrators for USM are simply jetting about all over the country all the time! They have to! And a limo to a distant private airport, flying for a hundred miles, putting down in another nowheresville airport, getting limo’ed from there to somewhere… You’d be amazed how much time this saves.
September 15th, 2010 at 10:49AM
Let me guess about the other part of the admin planes:
“…while science faculty, presenting on their research at conferences, either pay the cost of a commercial plane ticket themselves, or drive to the conference in aged and poorly-kept-up Motor Pool vehicles, for which they had to apply three months in advance.”
I once had a colleague who was stranded, in the middle of the night, with a group of students, returning from a conference, because someone in Motor Pool had not followed the proper upkeep schedule on the van, and its transmission failed.
November 29th, 2012 at 1:41AM
[…] was 2009. Since, then USM’s budget has collapsed (here’s the school is in 2010, defending continued use of a private jet and continued stoking of the football program at […]