What does it say about priorities at the University of Alabama?
About academics?
About students?
About what is important?
The University can build a $9 million weight room with a would-be-waterfall and an anti-gravity treadmill, but when graduate student tutors of athletes work so much they would qualify for benefits, they got the boot.
Roll Tide, guys. But back to the books with you.
A change in policy at the University has capped work hours for many graduate students – including athletic department tutors – at 20 hours. Since most grad students spend 20 hours in teaching posts, and close to 10 hours on second jobs such as tutoring , they were told last month their athletic department gigs are up.
Dozens of them at once got the news. Take your enthusiasm and your Crimson Tide Trapper Keepers and ... take a hike.
And what of all those athletes in the middle of learning physics, or the classics, or how to read? Somebody else will have to teach them. We don't know who right now, but it is a long time until a grading period. We do know it won't be grad students, who are among the most qualified to do it.
Of course it doesn't just affect tutors. It affects students with all manner of side jobs.
The University has blamed it all on the Affordable Care Act. Graduate School Dean Dave Francko wrote to students that the health care reform act redefined employees, and put new limits on the number of hours grad students are allowed to work. As a result they were limited to 20 hours.
So they were shown the door, without ceremony or collegiality. And you can blame Obamacare if you want to. That's what the University is counting on. It is true the law would have large employers provide some insurance for those it works more than 30 hours a week. But the truth is it was a University decision, plain and simple. And the decision was to cut these students loose.
If we know anything, it is that the University finds money when it wants to find money.
It can find money to pay President Judy Bonner $45,000 a month, for instance, with enough left over to offer her brother – soon-to-be ex-Congressman Jo Bonner -- $350,000 a year to grease the political skids from the UA system office. And to raise more money.
It can pay Francko himself $20,000 a month. It can cut a check to coach Nick Saban every month for $445,000. Every month. And that's OK.
Because complaining about Alabama coach's pay is like whining because the sky is blue, or because God himself still wears a checkered
hat.
I know most Alabama fans don't give a plugged nickel defense about those stupid smart kids who lost their jobs, who now struggle even harder to get through a school that gets more expensive every year. Most are thrilled at the waterfall, proud of the George Jetson gym, and if Nick Saban suggested duplicating the Trevi Fountain on the fifty yard line at Bryant-Denny, they'd just say Roll Tide.
But a statement like this makes another kind of statement. It says students are expendable cogs in the collegiate machine. You use them and lose them. And it says students who work with jocks to make sure they meet all their requirements as student athletes aren't even worth enough to be part of the team.
I know, I know. You'd have to be an idiot the live in Alabama and not know already where the University's priorities lie.
But they don't have to lie like this.
http://www.al.com/opinion/index.ssf/2013/08/university_of_alabama_spending.html#incart_opinion
About academics?
About students?
About what is important?
The University can build a $9 million weight room with a would-be-waterfall and an anti-gravity treadmill, but when graduate student tutors of athletes work so much they would qualify for benefits, they got the boot.
Roll Tide, guys. But back to the books with you.
A change in policy at the University has capped work hours for many graduate students – including athletic department tutors – at 20 hours. Since most grad students spend 20 hours in teaching posts, and close to 10 hours on second jobs such as tutoring , they were told last month their athletic department gigs are up.
Dozens of them at once got the news. Take your enthusiasm and your Crimson Tide Trapper Keepers and ... take a hike.
And what of all those athletes in the middle of learning physics, or the classics, or how to read? Somebody else will have to teach them. We don't know who right now, but it is a long time until a grading period. We do know it won't be grad students, who are among the most qualified to do it.
Of course it doesn't just affect tutors. It affects students with all manner of side jobs.
The University has blamed it all on the Affordable Care Act. Graduate School Dean Dave Francko wrote to students that the health care reform act redefined employees, and put new limits on the number of hours grad students are allowed to work. As a result they were limited to 20 hours.
So they were shown the door, without ceremony or collegiality. And you can blame Obamacare if you want to. That's what the University is counting on. It is true the law would have large employers provide some insurance for those it works more than 30 hours a week. But the truth is it was a University decision, plain and simple. And the decision was to cut these students loose.
If we know anything, it is that the University finds money when it wants to find money.
It can find money to pay President Judy Bonner $45,000 a month, for instance, with enough left over to offer her brother – soon-to-be ex-Congressman Jo Bonner -- $350,000 a year to grease the political skids from the UA system office. And to raise more money.
It can pay Francko himself $20,000 a month. It can cut a check to coach Nick Saban every month for $445,000. Every month. And that's OK.
Because complaining about Alabama coach's pay is like whining because the sky is blue, or because God himself still wears a checkered
hat.
I know most Alabama fans don't give a plugged nickel defense about those stupid smart kids who lost their jobs, who now struggle even harder to get through a school that gets more expensive every year. Most are thrilled at the waterfall, proud of the George Jetson gym, and if Nick Saban suggested duplicating the Trevi Fountain on the fifty yard line at Bryant-Denny, they'd just say Roll Tide.
But a statement like this makes another kind of statement. It says students are expendable cogs in the collegiate machine. You use them and lose them. And it says students who work with jocks to make sure they meet all their requirements as student athletes aren't even worth enough to be part of the team.
I know, I know. You'd have to be an idiot the live in Alabama and not know already where the University's priorities lie.
But they don't have to lie like this.
http://www.al.com/opinion/index.ssf/2013/08/university_of_alabama_spending.html#incart_opinion
