(07-14-2017 11:06 AM)quo vadis Wrote:  Last post, you posited that i had a 'near-religious' objection or somesuch to intercollegiate athletics, when truth is, i have no objection to them at all unless they are funded by mandatory student fees.

Now, you seem to think i have an extremely narrow definition of what qualifies as 'mission core' activities. But I don't. It's actually quite expansive, and easily encompasses something like campus-wide wi-fi, since that sure facilitates learning processes. E.g., I do a lot of things online in my classes, and it's a big benefit to students to be able to access the internet to interface without having to go to a particular lab or location or be tethered to a wire.

We can keep naming other support-type activities if you like, a laundry list of "well what about this, what about that", but the responses will be the same.

The thing is, and IMO this really shows how egregious forced-fees on students really is, even with my expansive definition, you can't shoe-horn "big time" intercollegiate athletics into the expansive equation. It's so far removed from the mission, you can't miracle it in.

The religious comment had only to do with how fervently you argue the position. No offense was meant, personally.

I will accept that athletics falls outside whatever boundary you want for core-mission vs. non core-mission, but I want you to then explain why you want it to be that schools can only pay for any non core-mission program/feature/amenity using money generated from an elective fee. Why does that make sense?