When it comes to donated money, as far at the bot is concerned, the issue of faculty senate is pretty much moot on any topic.

Vedder reminds me a lot of Trump. He is very good at making outlandish remarks that garner press coverage. Vedder's core beliefs are easy enough to understand, but half the stuff he says is speaking in extremes that I doubt he believes. He makes these remarks solely to pander to the media. I have mad respect for his skills in this area. He is very, very good.


This is an incredibly poorly worded and misleading excerpt from that article which exemplifies why I do not share Alan's respect for the Athens News. This is tabloid level reporting.

Pretty obvious from looking at the numbers the University is not "funding" the construction of this center with anything but donor funds. Where the University is using internal money is in the "financing" of construction. HUGE difference between the two. Where does the cash ultimately come from? Is the University liquid enough to handle this financing deal the next year? My guess is yes.

The "principal" of the loan is clearly covered by donations... As they come in. The only legitimate argument against this strategy would be to question the interest incurred. In the current environment, I'd imagine borrowing costs for the University would be limited, but at least that is a conversation worth having as opposed to this other nonsense the tabloids like to focus on..

+1

And it's not likely that if funds come up short that the general public would ever know.

I was reading over the posted comments on the Athens News site's most recent article on how the Trustees have handled this. So many of the comments were viciously anti athletics and betrayed a lack of understanding of this whole issue re funding, etc. Typical knee jerk posts you see all the time on media sites, facebook, etc, with a "don't confuse me with the facts" attitude. I like social media, but I'm not sure it's actually making a positive contribution to public discourse.

The Athens News is anything but fair and balanced in their coverage of athletics. They have an obvious agenda and try to mascarade it as objective unbiased investigative journalism. There's a reason it's free. I personally have never had much use for the rag.

I've got no problem with them conveying opposition to the project. My objections are with the accuracy of their claims of where funding for this project is coming from. There is a very large difference between the University providing funding and the University taking out a loan that will be repaid with contributions from donors that were designated towards this project.

Again, if you want to have a real debate about this method, discuss the interest the University will pay on this loan. That'd be a reasonable issue for a journalist to raise.

A couple of thoughts:

First off having been a grad asst. at our esteemed university and knowing the faulty mindset, college sports is always going to be a hard sell. College faculties in general feel exploited, complaining they barely make more than upper echelon high school teachers. Though I know of no high school teachers who get year long sabbaticals and teach no classes--doing only research as some professors do. I am sure most employed Americans would love to have a professor's salary and time off.

Also for those bringing in Donald Trump. Keep in mind most college faculty members have more in common with Bernie Sanders or the Green Party Candidate Jill Stein, let alone Hillary Clinton. If Trump gets more than 9% of the Ohio faculty vote, and or Jill Stein doesn't quadruple Trump's vote, I will be shocked. Though I am quite sure Trump will win the maintenance employee's vote. Now you know why William F Buckley said he would rather be governed by the first 1,000 names in the Boston phone book than by the Harvard faculty!

especially in faculty members own minds..,

Painfully true.