Last year, San Diego State students lost their swimming pool. Thehearts of swimmers on campus were broken as their pool was bulldozedand filled with dirt.
The void left by the pool will be filled by the new athletic center– a state of the art, four story marvel containing classrooms,auditoriums, weight rooms, computer labs, quiet study rooms, offices,etc.
Sounds like a great place, right?
Wrong. You, the ordinary student, will never see the inside ofthis building. It is reserved for “athletes.” But, the universitysays, only real athletes can make use of these facilities.
You are not a real athlete if you participate in hockey, rugby,lacrosse, wrestling, surfing, cycling, water skiing, men’s crew orany other sport that receives no funding from the university.Although you may work hard for your team, the university could careless about you and your little club sport.
In the future, the athletic building will be looked at with greatesteem and admiration, especially if we have winning teams.
In reality, it will always be a giant middle finger aimed atstudents and education. They might as well put a big neon sign on theside of the building that says “F**k you.”
The athletic building is the centerpiece in a master plan ofdevelopment on the part of the university, which included the famed”Aquaplex.” Students voted down the construction of the Aquaplex,realizing there was no need to have a water park on campus. AlthoughI would have been up every morning on those water slides and wouldhave gladly paid the increase in ARC fees, I understand that I was ina tiny minority.
The decision to build the Athletic center on top of the old poolwas a blatant move by the university to force the students to votefor the aquaplex. They could have easily built the new pool beforetearing down the old one. The athletic center should have been putoff until a new pool was completed.
My point is not that athletics should have no spot on the campusagenda. I love sports and they are important, but I see the decisionsof the university as symbolic of their disregard for the crucialcampus issues. Opting to completely flout the student opinion on thematter, the university went ahead and tore down the pool with noplans to replace it or give students a realistic alternative sourceof aquatic exercise. They removed something that benefited the entirecampus and built something that will benefit a tiny portion of thestudent body.
This university is riddled with problems.
We are overpopulated. There simply are not enough professors toservice the entire student body. If, by some miracle, you areactually able to enroll in a class, the shortage of parking spacesmakes the act of going to school very undesirable — and theuniversity wonders why there is such a low retention rate at thisschool?
The growth on this campus is going in the wrong direction. Wedon’t need more buildings and concrete, we need professors and aneducation. Because of the boom in college-age students, thisuniversity has an incredible opportunity that it is so far passingup. It has the opportunity to turn SDSU into a respected institutionof education. It is for this reason that I chose to attend. I sawSDSU’s educational “stock” rising.
So far, I’m very disappointed.
The first thing the university should do is pressure most studentsto graduate in four years. Coercing students to graduate in fouryears instills a sense of educational importance on the campus and,at the same time, frees up class space.
The idea that education comes first is far from the message theyare spreading when weight rooms come before classrooms andprofessors. I’m sure athletes on campus are happy with the expansion,but in the eyes of students, it is a step in the wrong direction.
President Weber needs to decide whether he wants a university or asports complex and water park. Because of these bad decisions, theopportunity of improvement is going to pass us by and we’ll be leftwith an aesthetically pleasing, second-rate university.
The new plans for the campus are cool, but not as cool aseducation.
–Reed Albergotti is a journalism junior. Send e-mail to daletter2000@hotmail.com
–This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of TheDaily Aztec.
