It was announced Friday that faculty and staff will be barred from using the new Wellness center without paying high fees. The fee is set at $360/year. (You can buy smaller increments at $30/month)
Apparently the students think that faculty and staff are waiting to overrun the facility, leaving no room for those who "paid" for it.
Actually, it is more of a slight by the people in Student Affairs, who see all of us as employees who are here only to serve the student customers. This attitude would bar us servants from using the facilities of the all-important customers.
To find that this campus building,open to all students, is closed to me because I didn't directly pay for it is annoying and divisive.
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I agree. As I student, I would not want to deny staff and faculty access to the facility. That's not very collegial of us and it sends the wrong sort of message. Even if you are simply our employees, an idea to which I do not fully subscribe, wouldn't it make sense for us to foster a good relationship in order to keep and attract the best employees?
I suspect most faculty will prefer the YMCA anyway and will continue to go there for a variety of reasons
Higher fees to exercise, higher fees to park, potentially higher fees for insurance, potentially higher fees for pensions (assuming the assembly gets its way) at some point many faculty will find they can't afford to work at UWO
Oh, gosh! And I was gonna be over there every day, running, swimming, pumping iron, working out! I am SUCH an exercise junkie, I am SO disappointed!!!
(Those who know me will see the humor in this. Like Robert M. Hutchins, former President of the University of Chicago, "Whenever I get the urge to exercise, I lie down until the feeling passes away.")
Seriously, if this was indeed built with specially appropriated student money, I have no beef with them charging admission of us who work for a living.
Apart from the fee for faculty and staff, don't forget we can't bring our family in with us either!
What also is amusing is that it won't be done on time as it was supposed to be done at the start of the academic year. From what I've heard, for it to open by Sept 10 as the email said, it will require an act of God or the VC-Student Affairs (I'm not sure who has more power but if you ask certain staff members in Dempsey, God and the VC-Student Affairs are one and the same).
I'm just disappointed that I won't get to see Robert Feldman's power walk on the elevated track.
So sorry you're annoyed. Your last sentence says it all. Gimme, gimme, gimme.
Something actually went the way of the students. Keep painting with the broadest brush available, like you did in your second graph.
As a UWO student, I could have cared less if other faculty and staff use the facility. Now I hope petty whiners like you are the only ones who have to pay. More than anything, your sense of entitlement makes things devisive.
That said, I'll pay for your first Wellness pass if it means you'll hate the "all-important customers" a bit less. Consider it a free lunch from the backs of the pampered, rich, state-school Oshkosh students who always get what they want.
Instead of playing students against faculty, put the shoe on the other foot and consider our situation. It's not all roses and cotten candy over here, either.
But being an all-knowing servant, you probably already know that. Too bad your posts rarely (never?) reflect that you know.
Last I checked, it was the [i]Student[/i] Rec & Wellness Center. How exactly would it be fair for faculty to get something for free when the students have to pay for it?
(And I thought by the title this would be something about an actual protest on campus!)
From the April 2006 UW System Report on Segregated Fees:
UW Oshkosh Wellness Center: Initially $91 per year in FY 06 for debt service and $120 per year for operations beginning in FY 08. Fees for debt service will increase to $192 per year in FY 07-08 and remain at this level until debt is paid off.
A few things:
1) Starting FY08, students will be paying $120 (operations) + $192 (debt service) = $312/yr. Why are they charging the faculty and staff more? (Actually, I'm OK with that - they're the ones with the really high paying jobs, right?)
2) At $312, that's a lot less than the 2007-2008 tuition increase for a 15 hour load for 2 semesters. So if I interpret the complaints about the tuition increase correctly, one perhaps gets some insight into the priorities of a few students. Or maybe this is OK because it's going to something you can walk up to and poke at with a stick, as opposed to an education.
3) It'll also bring the UW Oshkosh segregated fees up to something like $811/year. $811/year whether you use the services or not. We will have gone from one of the lowest to one of the highest fees in the system in no time flat. Good. I hope everyone (OK, just the students) enjoys it.
Sorry to be negative. I understand the need for the wellness center - on campus students can't really pop over to the YMCA easily. Health is important.
I just get annoyed at the costs for students to come here - but nobody talks about the rising fees (this amounts to a 38% increase) which students do have some control over.
That and for all this acquisition/construction on campus, how many new academic buildings do we have? Just one pipe dream. OK, again, maybe I'm not being fair, but someone's priorities are showing and they aren't mine.
Looking at the numbers is important, but just looking at what the decent thing to do can suffice. I think all should use the center after all it should promote wellness not resentment.
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