CSUF Students Pass Fee to Aid Athletics : Election: Campus president calls the vote a big step toward encouraging the university to restore football. Low turnout is called normal. Fee will begin in fall of 1994.

A proposed $14-a-semester student fee to aid the athletic program at Cal State Fullerton passed by a narrow 35 votes late Thursday night, student government leaders said.

The proposal was placed on the student ballot by Associated Students, the governing body for the 22,600-student campus. Students voted both Wednesday and Thursday, and polls closed at 8:45 p.m. Thursday.

The votes, counted Thursday night in the campus offices of Associated Students in the University Center, totaled 367 in favor and 332 opposed.

The fee will begin in the fall of 1994. Campus officials said it will raise more than $500,000 a year for Cal State Fullerton’s financially strained athletic program. The Athletics Department last year dropped football as part of budget cuts, and much sentiment in favor of the fee came from students hoping that football would be restored.

Chris Lowe, 23, of Placentia, president of Associated Students, said the fee would not guarantee the return of football to Cal State Fullerton. But he said the measure’s passage would be “a big step” toward encouraging the university to restore it.

Associated Students Elections Commissioner Price Givens, 22, of Placentia, said that low voter turnouts are normal in Cal State Fullerton elections. He said that even though only a small fraction of eligible students voted Wednesday and Thursday, the turnout was much higher than usual.

“Sometimes only about 200 people total vote in these elections,” Givens said. “This election (focusing on the increased student fee) has produced more interest among students than any in the three years I’ve been here.”

Givens said the proposed athletics fee provoked much individual discussion, but no groups organized either in support or opposition.

“Those who supported the fee said that Cal State Fullerton is a commuter school that could benefit from school spirit coming from better competition in athletics,” Givens said. “Those who opposed the fee said that money should be going to academics rather than athletics, and some of those who were opposed said they were just tired of getting so many fee increases.”