1/17/2010: Greg Bolt of the RG takes a closer look at Phil Knight’s Jaqua Athletes Only jock box. Regarding energy efficiency, there are a lot of LEED and SEED terms thrown out here and I’m no architect, but it seems that SEED (a state standard) is tougher and smarter than LEED (a frequently criticized national standard.) The Lillis building, for example, got LEED points by slapping a few solar cells on the front (in Oregon? please), and having a bike rack. The state architects behind SEED measure actual energy efficiency – and it looks like the glass cube will fail. Shocking.
There are two new things here. First, UO spokesperson Phil Weiler admits general UO funds are being used for the building:
The internal improvements and landscaping costs were paid with athletic funds and other unrestricted money, according to Phil Weiler, UO’s senior director of communications, which would be in keeping with UO’s long-standing assertion that sports are self-supporting.
Really? it seems like using unrestricted monies for this project specifically contradicts that assertion.
“There were no tuition dollars or state dollars used for those improvements,” Weiler said.
This is a very weak statement on Phil’s part. How much “unrestricted money” (for example, Foundation money that was *not* specifically earmarked for the athletic department and therefore could have been used for academics) is being spent on the Jock Box? Greg doesn’t follow up on that interesting question.
Second, Greg finally reports on some of the terms of the Frohnmayer codicil – including the news that Frohnmayer got nothing for the academic side in return for giving the athletic department the land, that professors are not allowed upstairs (my apologies to apartheid guy below – you were right!), and that now the jocks are considering charging the academic side for the heat we use when we hold Senate meetings there. Seriously.
Given the Senate’s history of hot air production, I think I see a potential win-win solution.
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