Last updated on 08/16/2018
11/3/2011: I’m not exactly shocked to learn that the Jaqua Center glass box burns through electricity like a Norwegian Casino. But it is rather surprising to discover that the academic side of UO – meaning tuition money, mostly – pays the electric bill. The athletic department sticks us with a bunch of other maintenance costs as well, totaling about $160,000 a year:
Sure, we’ll take out your trash, Mr. Mullens. And, of course, as we learned from the Register Guard earlier this year, general fund money also pays for the athlete only tutoring operation itelf – about $1.8 million, last time I looked. Let’s round it to a $2 million subsidy. Here is a summary of the previous stories:
5/8/2011: Greg Bolt has dual front page stories on the UO administration’s complicity in subsidizing UO athletics with state tax revenue and regular student tuition, in today’s Register Guard. The first compares the dismal support services for regular students with what the athletes get at what the NY Times calls UO’s “Jock Box”:
The agreement requires the UO to run the Jaqua Center “at the leading edge of academic excellence” by substantially increasing staff and services. The cost of providing those services comes from the UO’s academic budget, not from the athletic department. It comes to almost $2 million a year, which works out to about $4,000 per student-athlete. … (vs. about $225 a year for regular students.)
Bolt’s second story points out it’s the regular students who pay for the athletes-only Jock Box extravaganza:
At the University of Oregon, the cost is borne by the UO’s overall academic budget. It’s not part of the athletics department’s budget.
The weird part is that, given how his gift letter reads, I think Phil Knight expected the athletic department would pay for this – but then they realized they could trick our Provost, and keep the money for their own salaries. So get that dumb jock stereotype out of your head. We are the fools here.
Dog on energy efficiency of Jock Box
Its actually not that bad – although when I look at the Utility Bill I certainly don’t understand he strong monthly monthly fluctuations (e.g. Sep 2010 = 9600$) that don’t seem to be seasonally driven. Also not sure if utilities is just
electricity or electricity + heat in which case either the Jan Feb Mar numbers make no sense or
the Jock Box spends more on AC in the summer than heat in the winter.
In any event, Jock Box is about 40,000 square feet. A typical electricity use is about 0.5 – 1$ per
10 square feet so $4000 for Jock Box is not out
of line.
However, I think the summer time costs show why
you don’t have glass buildings in the summer.