The Associated Students of Linfield College recently enacted a plan to construct a sand volleyball court near Mahaffey Hall. We believe this decision, although made with good intentions, holds little benefit to the majority of students.
Senior ASLC President Ashlee Carter said in an interview that students were surveyed at the beginning of the year to see what kind of project they wanted, and a majority voted to have something done with the Observatory. To our surprise, Carter said the faculty has taken over the future of the Observatory (something we will certainly look into).
With the option of the project fund going toward the Observatory ruled out, ASLC considered other options, such as building basketball courts, a sand volleyball court and a rock climbing wall.
Carter said that a sand volleyball court was the most feasible option, explaining that the location for the proposed rock wall wouldn’t work well.
“When we looked more into it, the sand volleyball court was something we knew we could get done in our budget, [and] we could get [it] done by the time our cabinet was done,” Carter said.
One of last year’s cabinet’s ideas was to renovate the Fred Meyer Lounge, but it was turned down because it was outside of ASLC’s budget.
We, however, feel it is unwise to rule out ideas because they are not within a current budget or can’t be completed by the end of a school year. There’s something to be said about seeing something come to fruition during your year in charge, but that shouldn’t blind you to long-term planning. Sometimes, it’s better to start a big project rather than finish something small.
Carter said a past ASLC project was to renovate the Pioneer Reading Room. The project was out-of-budget at the time.
“They had to get a loan type of thing, and cabinet last year had agreed that each year’s cabinet will pay for a certain part of it,” she said.
The logic behind this past renovation was clear: It prioritized completing a project above the budget in a timely fashion by taking out a loan for the project and paying it back over time.
Renovating the FML was out of last year’s budget, but so was renovating the Pioneer Reading Room. Why not take out a loan to renovate the FML? Obviously we can’t be taking out loans left and right, but this doesn’t mean the idea should not be given thoughtful consideration.
ASLC essentially has three options: spend the entire budget on completing something now, invest the entire budget in a project to be completed in the future or take out a loan to complete a bigger project sooner. While the first option has its merits, ASLC should be open to the latter two options as they allow for larger projects to be undertaken.
Following this line of thinking, we feel that ASLC needlessly ruled out project plans that could have been more useful.
A sand volleyball court certainly has its uses, but it primarily benefits athletes (specifically volleyball players) and sports-interested individuals. But what about non-athletes? Shouldn’t such a project, funded by student body fees, benefit as many students as possible?
On top of that, this particular project seems to be spearheaded by Athletic Director Scott Carnahan.
“[Carnahan] is the one who’s going to talk to the excavating company to actually dig the hole, and he has someone to get the sand donated, and so he’s kind of taken the lead on most of the project,” Carter said. “We don’t even know if they’re going to need much of our cabinet project funding.”
If this is the case, then why not just make this completely an athletic department project? Let’s leave projects only benefitting athletes to the athletic department, especially when they’re the ones providing most of the funding.
This court could only really be used for the three drier months out of the school year: September, April and May. Even then, it could only be used on days without rain, anyway.
ASLC has put thought into this and plans to keep the court covered when it is not in use (which also prevents the court from being turned into a litter box for Linfield’s native wildlife). It also plans to install a drainage system under the court for when it rains. It’s good that ASLC has looked into these potential problems, but we believe that should be the extent of ASLC’s involvement with the project, as the athletic department seems capable of taking care of most of it.
Obviously, most of the cabinet fund will not be used on this project, but rather than simply letting the money roll over, let’s think about what we can do with it now:
In regards to the potential leftover money, Carter said, “We can also look into other smaller projects around campus that we know students [want] improved.”
We agree, but we would add that this discussion should be happening now as the year is almost wrapping up, leaving us short on time, and that this money does not have to be limited to smaller projects.
Some relatively simple projects that would help everyone would be removing the school’s old chalkboards. Adding more benches across campus is another easy project that has been brought up.
It’s OK to think big, too, as long as it’s rational. Renovating the FML is something that could be done. We could also start investing in a separate student union. Or how about getting back that bowling alley we apparently used to have?
While we aren’t trying to be confrontational, we are being critical. This discussion needs to be happening among students now. When ASLC realized after its survey that it could not re-open the Observatory, students should have received another survey with new options to think about or at least have been notified of the decision.
ASLC needs to figure out what most of the students want and work toward that, even if it might not be in this year’s budget or the immediate future.
ASLC uses our money; let’s make sure it’s being spent the way the majority of us want it to be spent.
-The Review Editorial Board
Listen to the interview with Carter here:
Part one – Carter interview (1)
Part two – Carter interview (2)
Part three – Carter interview (3)