UO Students push Schill away from mandatory athletic fee

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Pres. Schill backs away from mandatory athletic fee

UO Pres. Schill announced last week that he is backing away from recommending a mandatory athletics ticket fee in new student’s tuition. Instead the Pres. Schill is recommending to the Board of Trustees, which meets for its quarterly meeting Monday, an optional buy-in program subsidized by University licensing revenue. Under this program the University will make available 5,000 athletic student passes for $100 that gives them access to all football games and some men’s and women’s basketball games.

Both the ASUO Senate and UO Senate opposed the proposed mandatory fee. Previously the ASUO had an agreement with the athletics department wherein there would be a free ticket lottery for students that was paid by the I-fee, which all students pay into. ASUO made the decision to scrap the contract with the athletics department and instead put $1.7M towards 7 new student assistance programs.

The ASUO Senate is still urging students to provide public comment about this issue before the next Board of Trustees meeting.

Local links

  • In more Schill news: the UO president will be teaching an honors course on the “issues and challenges” of higher education in the United States. Among the issues he aims to address is ” diversity and inclusion,” “affordability,” and “the critique of universities as ‘neoliberal’ institutions.” Schill’s move is very rich considering he has been central to many of these problems at the UO. (Thanks to UO Matters for highlighting this course)

  • The City of Eugene is seeking feedback on their Community Safety Initiative with a new survey. Most of the options for priorities offered focus on funding for the criminal justice system and not upstream solutions, something local activists have been calling for.

  • UO is still opposing making bargaining with faculty observable by the public, and instead only viewable by observers they give the okay to. United Academics is still fighting back against the administration’s stance.

  • From last month: EPD cancelled their training with Force Science Institute after pressure from activists

  • Eugene wood treatment facility J.H. Baxter fined more than $200,000 for repeated environmental violations

The week ahead