Today marks the beginning of a weeklong vote where undergraduates will be asked to vote for or against the athletics fee referendum. You will hear arguments from both sides regarding whether students should vote yes on this fee and what the impact would be.

I write to you as an individual, having had many years of experience with this campus. As a former undergraduate, I have seen my fair share of fee referenda, including the original Intercollegiate Athletics Referendum in 2002 and the University Centers Expansion Referendum in 2003 (for which I personally chaired the A.S. task force). Additionally, I have been a member of the Registration Fee Advisory Committee since 2002. I would like to convey some of my reservations about this current fee referendum.

First of all, this will be a lot of money out of the students’ pockets. This referendum would increase the intercollegiate athletics fee, which is currently $95.40 per year, to a whopping $329.52 per year, making this one of the largest non-UC-mandated fees in the entire UC system. Granted that this referendum includes 29 percent return-to-aid for financially needy students, it would still have a large impact on the affordability of our campus.

Secondly, it is entirely inappropriate and unfair that students are the only ones having to shoulder this financial burden. Back in October, Cedric Dempsey, the former NCAA president, concluded a comparative analysis of our athletics program to other similar campuses (Chico State and Cal State Bakersfield) and delivered his findings to the A.S. Council. His report has been the impetus for the referendum you see today. One observation in the report was that our athletics program runs a few million dollars below those of our counterparts. Also in that report, though, are four other pieces of interesting information that aren’t mentioned in the referendum:

1) Our current student fee contribution is more than twice as high as the average of Chico State and Cal State Bakersfield, and four times higher than Cal State Bakersfield’s;

2) We severely lack revenue from royalties and advertisements, since the average of the other two schools is more than 10 times higher than ours;

3) We get almost non-existent indirect institutional support and absolutely no direct institutional support (in comparison, Cal State Bakersfield receives over $2 million in institutional support, which is 47 times more than us);

4) We don’t have any third-party funding support. Looking at the data, it is clear that students are already burdened with more than a fair share of the costs. If this referendum were to pass, our student fee contribution would be seven times more than those of the other schools!

Third, the current proposal as a whole doesn’t give students the opportunity to make a rational decision. You will hear statements like, UCSD will be on probation or kicked out of Division II if this referendum fails. That is not entirely correct. An incredibly small portion of the proposed fee will go to athletics scholarships (grants-in-aid). As a new requirement for Division II, all schools must provide at least $250,000 in athletics scholarships. Our campus is aiming to provide $300,000 to meet this requirement. Thus, with an undergraduate population of about 20,000, this would amount to a fee of about $20 a year (including the required return-to-aid). This amount is far more palatable and would ensure our eligibility for Division II standing.

The rest of the fee is to cover the operating costs of our athletics department, which has been running a deficit for a number of years. The consequence of not including this latter portion of the fee would result in the department reducing the number of teams to more closely match our counterpart schools (we currently have 23, while the average for Division II is 12). Why have these two separate issues been joined as one? To force voters to vote for both or neither!

Lastly, when our campus administration professes to want to better the undergraduate experience, why has no other group offered to help fund athletics? In particular, our campus is concluding its billion-dollar “”Imagine What’s Next”” campaign. Although most of these funds are donated for a specific purpose, there are still some “”unrestricted”” funds at the chancellor’s discretion.

Given that the athletics department needs about $3 million, this would be a mere 0.3 percent out of the total amount raised. If this is such a priority for our administration, why hasn’t this avenue been fully investigated? How can we ever truly have a strong athletics program when the rest of our campus community won’t even help to fund it?

In short, I personally have some strong reservations regarding the current fee referendum. I urge you to think about all the aspects of this proposal and to dig into the details. As a graduate student, this referendum doesn’t affect me (it is only being voted upon and paid for by undergrads), so I have no personal gain either way. I would also like to reiterate that this is my personal opinion, and not that of the RFAC or the Graduate Student Association.