Football vs. Library argument popping up again

[adman]

The Auditorium building is decrepit. There is a condemned basement that is shut off. The Art building is falling apart. The AC doesn't work in half of the music buildings. One of the Biology buildings is falling apart. Off the top of my head.

In 93 the Auditorium building was decrepit but as for the rest isn't the Art building and the music building(s) listed in the master plan as "fast track" on the replacement list? I feel like they are hence all the temp buildings off of Welch etc.

[meangreener]

There are level heads calmly discussing the differences in funding models and that is what I would encourage anyone here who jumps into the discussion to do. Calling people who are fired up about the administration kneecapping the library "hippies" and "baristas" and other meant-to-be-demeaning terms is counterproductive.

This is a great opportunity to educate people about the differences between athletic funding and academic funding and how the "football versus academic" us-against-them is a foolish strawman.

If you love your alma mater, you need to be furious about this Budget Office decision.

Agreed. It's very alarming. But you've got to educate people in a well-meaning way because we all want the some thing, there's just a lot of misguided people with uninformed opinions over funding. This budget decision is a huge red flag.

Also @ adman: the Music and Art buildings are on the plan but nothing has happened. The temporary buildings are not for them and are very poorly built anyway. You can read stories about how terribly they were thrown up. We half assed that, too.

Edited November 15, 2013 by meangreener

[Mean Green Matt]

I hear ya but no one honestly cares about the athletes after their eligibility is up. That's reality. Athletics is a business. A lot of folks make money off athletics. The university couldn't buy the advertising winning programs produce. (Unless of course you are Ivy league or something comparable.)

I wasn't being serious...just repeating the overused catch phrase from an NCAA marketing campaign of the past.

[meangreener]

I think what's more concerning is that we're spending millions on a terrible marketing campaign.

[Mean Green Matt]

The Facebook Page for it is full or tardos and stoops. https://www.facebook.com/saveuntlibrary

"This is outrageous. Millions spent on a bad football team, and "words" about becoming a Tier I Research University, and they are planning financially devastating cuts to the LIBRARY????"- from a Music Prof

"Cut down on the sports and support real education University of North Texas!! Save the UNT Library I worked and studied at Willis library, the library system was a huge part of my education. The periodicals, even the bound ones, I always found something new. Every time I worked in the stacks I'd have to check out a few new finds. even..UNT Squirrels"

"It needs to be apples to apples. If the state/UNT cant fund the library or its employees, it shouldn't fund football or its coaches. Football should be able to stand on its revenue generation ability. Not picking on FB, but the irony of this and the new 'whale tail' stadium makes UNT look lopsided in it's priorities. Please post the applicable law that prevents universities from funding library employees."

People are going to believe whatever they want to. For many, facts are just nuisances.

[laxtonto]

You want to cut $1.7 million annually in staff positions from the library? What are we going to staff it with, student workers?

If you are already determined to be over-budget and now are willing to cut services but not staffing, what happens to those who are working for or in those services that have been cut? The absurdity of making a blanket statement that we are not going to reduce staff, but instead cut services is in essence an admittance that a legitimate analysis of the problem was never conducted and only a reactionary action was taken.

If you remove services, how can you not reduce manpower and keep the same productivity? It does not balance out. This is very much a situation of someone making a complaint about the system instead of ever actually looking at the problem.

[Mean Green Matt]

Maybe with all the extra publicity the football team is bringing in this year it will attract a donor to cover the shortfall....

[JesseMartin]

If I had access to budget info and admin like I did back in the day, I could find a way out of this in like a week. That not being the case, I nominate Flyer and meangreener.

[MeanGreenWithEnvy]

If you are already determined to be over-budget and now are willing to cut services but not staffing, what happens to those who are working for or in those services that have been cut? The absurdity of making a blanket statement that we are not going to reduce staff, but instead cut services is in essence an admittance that a legitimate analysis of the problem was never conducted and only a reactionary action was taken.

If you remove services, how can you not reduce manpower and keep the same productivity? It does not balance out. This is very much a situation of someone making a complaint about the system instead of ever actually looking at the problem.

You bring up some good points, but I'm out of time to discuss things tonight. I'll follow up tomorrow.

[meangreendork]

Woke up to one of the classic statements about the library and stadium, and had to do the ol' clarification dance. The hilarious part is that the fees for the library and its services are 65% higher than that of the athletics program - all of the athletics program. So that said, I think the priorities are in order.

As for that odd regulation, it does seem strange that funds for salaries/wages/benefits have to come from a specific source. I would understand why you couldn't cover football with state funding, but I don't get why something that's directly tuned to academics (library salary/wages/benefits) can't come from funding aimed specifically at academics.

But from what I've gathered, here's the deal:

At some point, however many years back, UNT's libraries were joint funded through state funds and student fees. Back then, the fees were designed to be a supplement to state funds to bump salaries, get new materials, etc.

Then, the student library fee was increased (again, many years ago), and some people thought that the fee alone could cover the expenses of the library, salaries/wages included. So for employees past a certain cutoff date, they were paid out of student fees. And for employees before a certain date, whose pay came from state funds, they continued to be paid from state funds. To offset this, both the previous and current Dean of the Libraries asked for a fee increase, but they were declined.

Now the issue is that ALL library employees have to be paid through student fees, no grandfathering allowed. This means that a student fee that was never designed to support the pay of all of the employees and running operations of the library has to do exactly that.

Apogee or not, the library system would still be dicked right now.

Edited November 15, 2013 by meangreendork

[oldguystudent]

Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc: The football stadium got funded and the coach's salary was raised. Therefore, the library funding fell short. Defunding the football stadium and coaching salary will therefore fund the library and its staff.

In all honesty, it does not speak well of our overall academic standards if faculty are going on record with logical fallacies like this. It's embarrassing, really.

Edited November 15, 2013 by oldguystudent

[greenjoe]

Admitedly, I don't go in the huge majority of the buildings on the NT campus. But when I do, I see a neat and clean building. I have never set foot in any building at NT that I would have described as "crumbling." Crumbling where ? As stated, I don't go into the basements or into the attics but they all seem in good repair to the untrained eye.

The oldest building I can think of is the Auditorium Building. It was old when I started there in 1969 but it was always neat and clean. Not crumbling. Since then, I have been to the Auditorium Building for a good many lectures and concerts and I never thought it was about to fall down.

So where are the observers finding glaring defects in the Art, Biology, and Auditorium Buildings ? Has the Maintanence Department been contacted with specific problems ? If not, why not ?

I choose to support the Athletic Department. It's just more fun and I have traveled to many out of town venues I had not seen otherwise. I could have gone to all of these places, but Athletics actually motivated me to pony up the money to buy a aiplane ticket and rent a hotel room.

Other than that,

Beat UTSA. Then, beat everybody else.

GO MEAN GREEN

[tylermeangreen]

Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc: The football stadium got funded and the coach's salary was raised. Therefore, the library funding fell short. Defunding the football stadium and coaching salary will therefore fund the library and its staff.

In all honesty, it does not speak well of our overall academic standards if faculty are going on record with logical fallacies like this. It's embarrassing, really.

Love the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy - It has so many uses, from the discussion herein all the way to politics - ESPECIALLY politics.

How many times do we read/hear that "A happened before B; A, therefore, must be the cause of B?" Such a wonderful vehicle for dispensing ignorance and misinformation!

As a guy who teaches economics, your use of the term caused a smile on my face!

GMG

[oldguystudent]

As a guy who teaches economics, your use of the term caused a smile on my face!

GMG

Harry Ellis tried really, really, really hard to recruit me into Economics. Had I been about 15 years younger, I may have taken him up on it. I always enjoyed the subject.

[meangreenthirteen]

I worked in and out of every single UNT building and every single classroom every weekday for 4 years. "Crumbling" is a giant reach. Misinformed people seem to be the loudest.

[EagleMBA]

Apparently you missed the phantom natural gas smell reported by a Denia resident the day of the homecoming bonfire and her fear that the leak would blow up her neighborhood.

Guess what was never found? A gas leak or even the faintest smell of natural gas that she (and she alone) had detected.

They are still out there. Just resorting to more desperate tactics.

Daddy said "The mole smells his own hole first!".

[3XNTGRAD]

Only one building is literally crumbling that I am aware of. It is not the Biology Building (actually now part of the Life Sciences Complex and the building that I work in). The one that is in bad shape is the Science Research Building. Poor construction when it was built has now led to a situation where the brick walls are detaching from the structure. All indications are that it would likely cost more to repair it than to replace it.

[meangreener]

I worked in and out of every single UNT building and every single classroom every weekday for 4 years. "Crumbling" is a giant reach. Misinformed people seem to be the loudest.

Apparently you've never been in the auditorium building. There's an entire basement that is closed off due to mold and disrepair. It is condemned. The actual auditorium had barely functioning lights and asbestos...it was repaired under the Union plan since it is now used like the Lyceum. Take off the green colored glasses. We have problems. You should hear the issues the English staff have in that building. Should I post the essay I posted on the Facebook thread? Then will you understand there's a gigantic budget issue? Instead of fixing our academic buildings, administration stealthily passed a Union vote without consulting the students.

To be fair, they let us decide how to pay for it.

If you're not on campus every day working in these buildings experiencing the every day goings on, you really have no dog in this race. Just because a building was fine in the 80s doesn't mean it is now. I'm in the Auditorium building on a daily basis. This is something I'm extremely informed on and is a crusade of mine; I can back it up, so tread lightly in this argument. Done a lot of research into this.

Edited November 15, 2013 by meangreener

[meangreenthirteen]

Apparently you've never been in the auditorium building. There's an entire basement that is closed off due to mold and disrepair. It is condemned. Take off the green colored glasses. We have problems. You should hear the issues the English staff have in that building. Should I post the essay I posted on the Facebook thread? Then will you understand there's a gigantic budget issue? Instead of fixing our academic buildings, administration stealthily passed a Union vote without consulting the students.

To be fair, they let us decide how to pay for it.

If you're not on campus every day working in these buildings experiencing the every day goings on, you really have no dog in this race. Just because a building was fine in the 80s doesn't mean it is now. I'm in the Auditorium building on a daily basis. This is something I'm extremely informed on and is a crusade of mine; I can back it up, so tread lightly in this argument. Done a lot of research into this.

I have been in there. Far, far, far more times than you have. There is asbestos in something like 80% of university buildings. So much so that I needed mandatory yearly asbestos training to work in the buildings. The auditorium was recently gutted and is being worked on.

And, Ryan, dude, I think you missed the part where I said I was in each of those buildings every day as an employee. For 4 years.

Edited November 15, 2013 by meangreenthirteen

[meangreener]

I have been in there. Far, far, far more times than you have. There is asbestos in something like 80% of university buildings. So much so that I needed mandatory yearly asbestos training to work in the buildings. The auditorium was recently gutted and is being worked on.

The Auditorium renovations are finished.

Still a condemned basement. Still has doors that don't close (but we're green). Still has occupancy issues. Still isn't up to fire code. Top two floors are still stuck with broken faucets, missing tiles, beehives, tearing wallpaper, broken doors, no airflow, etc. The auditorium was gutted because of Union renovations. It is the new Lyceum. Not because it needed it.

Edited November 15, 2013 by meangreener

[meangreenthirteen]

The Auditorium renovations are finished.

Still a condemned basement. Still has doors that don't close (but we're green). Still has occupancy issues. Still isn't up to fire code. Top two floors are still stuck with broken faucets, missing tiles, beehives, tearing wallpaper, broken doors, no airflow, etc. The auditorium was gutted because of Union renovations. It is the new Lyceum. Not because it needed it.

Well this is where I have to bow out because I don't know enough about the Union business that has continued to develop after I left. But as a 4-year student and employee and now an employee of the other university in Denton, I can say that UNT's campus, while going through a period of painful growth, is still among the best in the state.

[MeanGreenTexan]

Re: the Auditorium, the issue is with that dang organ rattling the walls. Wouldn't surprise me if all the sheetrock came crumbling down one day while someone is practicing.

[meangreener]

Re: the Auditorium, the issue is with that dang organ rattling the walls. Wouldn't surprise me if all the sheetrock came crumbling down one day while someone is practicing.

LMFAO!! Totally agree. Although the thing barely gets used anymore because the auditorium room is used for classes now. I haven't heard it played once this year.

[Cerebus]

I worked in and out of every single UNT building and every single classroom every weekday for 4 years. "Crumbling" is a giant reach. Misinformed people seem to be the loudest.

The SRB is literally crumbling, most of it is unfit for use and has been abandoned, and there are 2x4's holding up some of it. It is crumbling, and it needs to be replaced ASAP.

[oldguystudent]

Somehow, the issue of library salaries, which appear to have been coming from some kind of misappropriated funds, then got sidetracked to the completely unrelated new football stadium, leads to a thread on the condition of the auditorium and the volume of the organ. My simple mind cannot handle the multi-tasking.