On Aug. 30, I joined hundreds of my fellow students in line to witness the wonder and spectacle that is the newly opened Student Recreation and Wellness Center.
The $61 million recreation center is the most beautiful gymnasium I have ever seen. Unfortunately for Cal State Long Beach students, the recreation center is just a gym. This recreation center is a prime example of the way in which the leadership at CSULB has failed and continues to fail to act in pursuit of the needs and best interests of the student body.
The leadership at this school lacks foresight, common sense and a vision of what it means to be a low-cost university in a time of economic crisis.
Some might argue that the construction of the recreation center will not impact the pursuit of future education-related expenditures. After all, the gym is funded by an additional $110 fee per semester.
Despite what recreation center proponents might argue however, the pursuit of a costly construction project places a constraint on the allocation of funds in the future. This concept is known as opportunity cost in economics terms. Furthermore, there is a limit as to how high student tuition and fees can be raised without compromising CSULB’s reputation of being among the most affordable and accessible places to receive a university education in this country.
Despite a vocal opposition, the student government pursued construction of the the recreation center in the absence of public debate on the subject. To that end, the public relations firm Brailsford&Dunleavy was hired in 2005 in order to bring the center “from concept to concrete.” In other words, ASI hired a company to manipulate opinion before students voted in 2007 to go ahead with the costly and unnecessary project.
This year, the California state government will spend a whopping $26.3 billion more than it will collect in tax revenue. This ongoing state budgetary crisis has led to cuts in spending for education and steep tuition hikes for University of California and Cal State University students. This is due in large part to the recent economic crisis.
The decision to build a $61 million gym in a state-funded institution of higher education that is likely to experience more budget cuts going forward, demonstrates how out of touch university leadership is with reality.
It can be argued that construction for the recreation center was initiated before the economic crisis hit. This is not a valid excuse for a lack of foresight. The state of California has experienced numerous boom-and-bust cycles throughout its history. There were a number of serious warning signs that foretold of trouble.
To quote from an article I wrote for this newspaper on Sept. 7, 2004: “Scores of people [will] default on their mortgages. House prices will fall, and billions of dollars in assets will disappear virtually overnight. Americans will not be able to spend as much when they see their collective worth plummet. We can also anticipate more spending cuts in the universities.”
If a lowly volunteer columnist for the Daily 49er is able to anticipate impending economic problems for CSULB, I would expect the same of President F. King Alexander with his $250,000 annual salary.
In a time of increasing economic uncertainty and dubious job prospects for graduating seniors, CSULB needs to redefine its values and reevaluate its purpose. Our school should be a place for us to gain the knowledge and skills that will help us navigate and compete in an uncertain economic climate. Any expenditure, that does not have at its core this basic principle, should be eschewed in favor of the pursuit of projects that advance CSULB as an institution of higher learning.
Sterling Harris is a graduate student and a contributing writer for the Daily 49er.
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