CSUN Faculty Rejects Plan for Poll on Athletic Funding : Education: Instructors instead will ask a foundation to reconsider its $5-million pledge to campus sports.

The Cal State Northridge Faculty Senate turned back a proposal Thursday that would have allowed instructors to vote on whether $5 million pledged to campus athletics by a private foundation should be shifted to educational programs.

Instead, the organization voted unanimously to ask the CSUN Foundation, which gets its money from operating the bookstore and food services, to voluntarily reconsider its athletics expenditures in light of the budget crisis threatening to force cuts in educational programs.

Representatives of the foundation, whose board of trustees includes several faculty members, agreed to hold a public hearing on the issue.

“I support this,” said Trustee John Clendenning, an English professor. “This would have come up anyway” given the budget crunch, he said.

The issue over spending on athletics can be traced to the decision by the campus in 1988 to upgrade its program from Division II status to Division I in all programs except football. Division I competition includes the highest profile athletic programs in the nation.

In 1989, the foundation, which had been running up budget surpluses, offered to contribute $500,000 each year for 10 years to help support the upgraded program. At that time, however, few foresaw the budget difficulties ahead.

At Thursday’s Faculty Senate meeting, administrators said they are planning on budget cuts next year ranging from 3.5% to 9.5% in some programs. The campus library budget was cut $1 million this year already.

In light of these grim facts, some faculty members have begun to believe that the decision to upgrade the athletic program will be a costly mistake.

“I don’t think this faculty has had a chance to make a fair assessment of whether we want to go to Division I,” said Jane Bayes, a political science professor.

Several professors presented the Faculty Senate with a proposal Thursday asking that the faculty as a whole, along with students, be allowed to vote on whether the foundation should continue to support athletics. Although the vote would not have been binding, it would have put pressure on the foundation, professors said.

Besides athletics, the foundation supports research, student projects and some construction.

The proposal was denounced by several members of the Faculty Senate, who said it was an affront to the foundation and could set a precedent leading to polls on every campus issue.

“Do we want to influence the foundation?” asked Albert Baca, a literature professor. “Do we do that by slapping them in the face?”

But David Klein, a mathematics professor, said: “This is not merely a concern of the foundation. It’s a concern of the university. Studies demonstrate that it is a virtual certainty that an athletic program of this type is a money loser.”

The senators finally decided to water down the proposal. History professor Ronald Davis suggested that “in light of the current budget crisis, we request that the foundation hold a full public hearing to reconsider the decision to allocate funding to Division I athletics.”

The motion passed easily, after several Faculty Senate members said if the foundation fails to change its mind the faculty could bring up the poll idea next fall.