Washington State University - Chinook Yearbook (Pullman, WA)

Page 33 text:

Athletic Department claims deficit so... 9TUDGNTC TrtkG IT IM THG SGrtTC! Wake-up call is still 10:50 on Saturday mornings. Security ushers line up nervously on the inside of the foyer gates in Martin Stadium. They rattle the steel gates and the crowd stirs. Hundreds of bleary-eyed stu¬ dents gather up sleeping bags, pillows, cool¬ ers and bodas, and clamor forward. Most have waited several hours, half asleep and half dead from the night before, but that ' s the going price for prime seats at Cougar football games. Eleven o ' clock and the gates swing open. Ushers are pinned against the wall as stu¬ dents crazed by the rush for 50-yard line seats spring into the empty stadium. Within minutes, every midfield seat has a blanket spread out to warn others that row of seats has been reserved for friends arriving later. The fight is tougher these days. There are fewer 50-yard line seats to scramble for. A large portion of those precious midfield seats are now reserved long before the stadium gates open on Saturday morning. Last spring, the ASWSU Assembly signed an agreement that turned two sections of seats east of the 50-yard line over to the athletic department to see to reserved seating fans. The first time the athletic department came before the ASWSU Assembly, January 13, it met vehement opposition to a plan that would create more than 3,000 additional re¬ served seats at the students expense. Nego¬ tiations teams from both sides haggled terms for months, and after a last minute flurry of opposition from half the assembly and a handful of concerned students, an agree¬ ment was signed. On April 21, the assembly released about 2,000 midfield student seats to athletics. The athletic department approached the assembly claiming a projected deficit of about $390,000 for 1982-1983. Representa¬ tives of the department blamed the rising price of guarantees to PAC-10 teams playing games in Pullman for part of the deficit. The $50,000 paid to visiting football teams in the 1981 season was expected to double by the 1983 season. The rising costs of grants and financial aid services, and travel expenses presented more complications for the de¬ partment ' s financial situation. The first seating proposal came out of negotiations early in March. The assembly voted unanimously to reject the plan. It would have turned the two sections strad¬ dling the 50-yard line and another section to the east into reserved seats. The assembly voted instead to continue negotiations. Assembly representatives began working out a written contract with the athletic de¬ partment that listed several concessions the students would receive in exchange for a turnover of seats. The agreement set a prece¬ dence in that the seats belong to the students and any seats made into a reserved section still belong to the students. All seats in re¬ served sections must be sold with a demon¬ strated ability to sell more seats before stu¬ dents can be approached to give up more. And, any further adjustments of seating must be under the mutual agreement of the students and the athletic department. The issue looked like it would be finally settled about the middle of April when ASWSU executives began to question the integrity of athletic department representa¬ tives in the negotiations. Rob Hoon, ASWSU president, said the athletic depart¬ ment had dealt with students with a “lack of good faith discussion. To further compli¬ cate the finalization of the contract. Presi¬ dent Glenn Terrell refused to sign unless the university president was given the express power to make the final decision on seating adjustments if the students and athletic de¬ partment could not come to an agreement. Many assembly members felt this negated the entire purpose of the agreement, to leave control of the student seating with the stu¬ dents. Terrell finally consented to sign the agree¬ ment as written and on April 21 only the signature of the ASWSU president remained to be signed pending approval of the assem¬ bly. The decision was split after two hours of final debate in an assembly meeting and ASWSU Vice President Dan Peterson cast the tie-breaking vote in favor of signing the agreement. Students outside the assembly did not speak out against the seating turnover until after the agreement was given final approval. A “Save Our Seats rally, a meager attempt to regain the seats lost to reserved fans, took place on the CUB Mall two weeks after the contract was signed. About 100 students gathered to listen to student speakers and about 33 people marched to the stadium chanting, ‘They’ve got our seats — we want them back. The rally pretty much ended the seating issue for the 1981-82 school year, but the athletic department has already considered new alternatives for raising revenue for the students. Not far off is either an admission charge to athletic events for students, or an increase in Service and Activities fees. — Paul Frichtl

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Are you stuck with nothing new and dif¬ ferent to do? For an entertaining and in¬ formative pastime, visit the various museums which are scattered about campus. These collections trace their origins back to the earliest days of Washington State Uni¬ versity, and have been growing and expand¬ ing over the years. Some of the collections, although they are available for the interested observer, are used principally for educational purposes: identification of certain specimens and studying of class material. One of these is the Mycological Herbar¬ ium, housed in the Department of Plant Pathology on the third floor of Johnson Hall. This collection was founded in 1915 by Fred¬ erick D. Heald, the first chairman of the department. As quoted by Dr. Rosie Chako, curator of the herbarium, it is “one of the largest herbariums on the west side of the Mississippi River,” and contains approx¬ imately 66,000 specimens of fungi. Another primarily educational exhibit is the James Entomological Museum which contains nearly one million insect speci¬ mens. It is also one of the largest collections of its kind in the Northwest. Although the specimens are generally of regional signifi¬ cance, some come from all over the New World, tropics, eastern North America, and Europe. This collection contains all insect groups with an extremely strong exhibit in flies, beetles, and butterflies. The museum is located at the west end of Johnson Hall’s third floor. Front Bones to Art: The Museums of WSU 30 EXPRESSIONS Museums