Funding Sports at CSUN

Last month’s decision to eliminate four men’s athletic teams at Cal State Northridge has created both a storm of controversy and an abundance of honest emotion, from anger to frustration and from pain to sadness. However, all of the reactions seem to me largely to ignore one crucial element of the decision: The primary focus of this university--in fact of any university--is its academic programs. At Northridge, not only are the academic programs essential to our mission of educating students, they are the reason the vast majority of our students enroll in the first place.

Because this is true, athletics cannot be permitted to impact negatively on academics as its budget shortfall was threatening to do. As Northridge’s chief academic officer, I believe that the decision made by President Blenda Wilson was necessary in light of other possible alternatives that would have compromised the university’s ability to serve the thousands of students who attend there.

For example, the $800,000 athletics deficit might have been made up from the academic programs budget. At an average cost of $3,700 a course, $800,000 would fund approximately 216 sections a year. With an average enrollment in lecture courses of 32, this would result in 6,912 fewer class seats for students each year. We would then be forced to renege on our commitment to offer enough classes to meet the needs of our students.

With limited state support and a California economy that is just now recovering from recession, unpopular decisions on budget allocations have to be made daily at the university. Since the late 1980s, all academic programs have been asked to achieve greater efficiency doing more with less in responding to student and community needs. They have done so. In good conscience, they could not be asked to sacrifice more for the sake of the athletics program.

I would like to believe that the pain caused by last month’s complex decision about the athletics program will be somewhat ameliorated by the value of a Cal State Northridge education to our tens of thousands of future graduates.

LOUANNE KENNEDY

Provost and vice president

for academic affairs

California State

University, Northridge