Is the Stroh Center in jeopardy of not being built???

[murphdogg]

I find it funny that people all of a sudden decided that USG was no longer a representative body because they approved one thing they did not agree with. A news flash to those people: That's how representative democracy works! I saw a student with a sign that said "USG doesn't represent me." That is the same line of BS people use when they said "Bush is not my president" or now say "Obama is not my president". YES, THEY DO REPRESENT YOU! Whether you like it or not, these people were elected with a majority of the vote, so they represent a majority of the student body. If you didn't vote, tough sh*t. Decisions are made by those who show up.

I view this as a short-sighted attempt by a small group of self-righteous people with extreme views trying desperately to find any means of killing a project that will be hugely beneficial to the University

One final note, someone said of the planned referendum, "Should we let 21 students represent 18,000?" The answer is yes. The U.S. Senate is 100 people representing 300 million+ and it's working out well for us so far.

Join the Facebook group "I am in favor of the Stroh Center" to show your support!
http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/group ... 1781380882

[BGSU33]

There is some interesting information on here so far. Excuse me for asking what is probably going to sound like an elementary question about the topic, but hypothetically speaking, let’s say the decision on the student fees is reversed or removed from the equation. Will BGSU still push forward and start construction on the facility or does progress on getting the project underway come to a halt?

[murphdogg]

I believe, but I am not certain on this, that they will have to privately raise money to pay it off. This would take much, much longer than raising money by slightly increasing student fees

[doughash]

The actual allowance to raise fees is voted on by the Ohio Board of Regents. All the posturing going on now is about whether there is student support to raise fees, which is one of the criteria the Board of Regents looks at before making their decision. A comment from one of the board members:

"We do ask for some kind of expression of student support," said Mike Chaney, spokesman for the Ohio Board of Regents. "Certainly if there's a resolution that's later overturned, then that resolution obviously wouldn't qualify as a measurement of student support."

[Ryan Autullo]

This all seems very juvenile to me. Ask yourself this question: When is the last time you witnessed a drastic change come about because of a petition? Honestly. This seems soooo sophomoric to me. It reminds me of the time in high school that some idiots repeatedly stole silverware from the cafeteria so the principal reacted by making us use plastic sporks. My buddies and I started a petition to get rid of the sporks because "Sporks just don't cut it." It was all in fun as most petitions are. But this one is just silly.

And you have to love when the one organizer says, "This is not an anti Stroh Center petition. It's a petition to vote." Very believable. Just call it what it is and maybe I'll listen to you.

At just about every university you have your average students and then you have your "fighting the man" students. I wish the "fighting the man" students would get out of the way on this one.

[Ryan Autullo]

So this group of "activists" is on the 30, 40 and 50 year graduation plans. I guess they have a point if they're going to pay $60 / semester for that long it could get costly.

Nice!

[Ydfalcon]

At just about every university you have your average students and then you have your "fighting the man" students. I wish the "fighting the man" students would get out of the way on this one.

I'll definitely agree with you there. Some of the people at the "protest" seemed to legitimately care about not being able to personally voice their opinion on whether or not they should be charged a fee for the Stroh. I can respect that. I think it's still kind of a weak argument, and a lot of noise is being made about something relatively small, but I can at least respect their position.

But a whole other contingent of the "protesters" seemed to be there just because they are "fight the man" type students. A good number of the signs I have seen in the pictures, video, and the passing glance I gave the protest as I walked by, seemed to not even really relate to Stroh or the issue at hand. There were quite a few "Free Speech!" signs, which I thought was kind of ridiculous, seeing as how at no point during this entire process has anyone's free speech ever been remotely in jeopardy. But as you implied, there will always be the activist type students who just itch for something to protest and as soon as the slightest issue comes along, they are out there.

Personally, I may be a graduating senior this year, and so I won't have to pay the additional $60 per semester. But if I were a new freshman, I still wouldn't really care. Honestly, in the face of all the costs of tuition, room and board, books, etc... another $60 is a drop in the bucket. And when it is being used to give us a beautiful facility that will improve the face of the University (and not just in athletics, but over all, contrary to some of the arguments I've heard), as well as some improvements in the parking situation, I think it's $60 well spent.

The other thing that is eating at the back of my mind on this that I haven't heard anybody else mention is that I imagine if we were a "bigger" school (in terms of how popular our athletic brand is, in other words, a BCS level university), the students would have no problem paying another $60 per semester to build a nice new multi-purpose arena like this. But because we're BG, we're somehow supposed to view students paying into improving their university as some kind of hassle.

[falconman]

http://www.bgviews.com/our_views/opinio ... -1.1598617

[bgsufalcon24]

http://www.bgviews.com/our_views/opinio ... -1.1598617

I like how this particular individual didn't beat around the bush, he went right for the main point and absolutely trashed those protestors with the classy signs like S my D. I do like the fact that he focused on these students' apparent lack of how representative democracy works too. Very good response.

[Chimie]

I was out during the protests, trying to correct any fallacies laid out by the opposition. I wrote a note on Facebook summerizing the major arguements against the Stroh Center.

Here is my note.

I know a lot of students feel apathetic about this issue and just want it to go away, but please just give this note a read and when the vote comes up, don't let such a huge injustice occur.

I'm not a student-athlete, nor am I an administrator, I am not related to any either, just a Falcon who wants the best for his University.

Many of us know the facts about the Stroh Center, so I won’t bother repeating the same old arguments everyone has heard (front door, blah blah blah), but please bear with me as I repeat some basics to start, as an uninformed voter is the nemesis of democracy.

The Stroh family donated (approximate figures here) $7.7 million to the Stroh center, $200,000 for intercollegiate athletics, and $100,000 to the Stroh Family Endowed Scholarship on the day they made the donation. On top of that, they've made many more donations to scholarships and academics over the years as well. In addition to Kerm Stroh’s donation, a total of 14 million dollars was raised for a new Convocation Center. These donations were made for this building, and cannot be used for any other building and issue. Other donors donated as well, such as Allen Schmidthorst, who offered his thanks for decades of education and entertainment by presenting a $1.7 million gift for the future home of Falcon hoops. Many of these donors donated generously to their alma mater in hopes for this new Convocation Center.

The Stroh Center is estimated to cost $36 million dollars to build, which in this current economic condition is extremely cheap. Due to the lack of work construction companies and contractors are willing to work for less money, meaning this is the perfect time to build. Out of this $36 million dollars, about 14 million has been paid for in private donations, leaving the remaining $22 million to be paid for by the student body of the academic year 2011-2012 and onwards.
$10 out of the $60 dollar fee goes to pave lot 6 “overflow,” an issue students have been wanting for quite some time.

These are the main arguments I heard when I was present at the protests in the Free-speech oval.

1) The Stroh Center is “recreational spending” while academic buildings are deteriorating. The University's priorities are wrong!

In 2002, the University set a goal of raising $120 million in the Building Dreams campaign, it was a high standard that many felt would be unattainable. But the dream became a reality: BGSU received $146,533,152 in donations. These donations helped establish 540 new scholarships, 13 endowed professorships, two endowed chairs and two teaching-excellence coaching awards and the new Wolfe Center for the Arts. Other projects that the campaign supports are the Dallas-Hamilton Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership and the President’s Leadership Academy. Much of the other money is going towards renovations to current buildings, and will be used to keep the University running smoothly. President Carol A. Cartwright also credited co-chairs Kerm Stroh and Ron Whitehouse for their strong leadership skills throughout the fund-raising campaign.

As for the deteriorating buildings, such as University Hall, Mosley, and Hanna Hall, these buildings are historical buildings, as they are the original buildings of the University; tearing them down would be removing the core of what BGSU is. Clearly they all need to be renovated; however, substantial renovations can only occur during the summer session, as classes and offices are held in the buildings during the year. This past summer the three buildings received new roofs, and BGSU has put forth a plan to bring all of its buildings, including the Greek life buildings up to be handicap-accessible within a decade. Let’s not forget the brand new Wolfe Center for the Arts, which is being built partially in response to the conditions in University hall, so that there is less reliance on such an old building.

Clearly, BGSU does NOT have academics on the back burner, as an academic institution, we definitely still put academics first. If it doesn’t seem that way, it might be that you’ve not looked hard enough.

2) In tough economic times, we should be tightening the budget, not expanding spending!

Bowling Green State University is a business, and like any business, they need to respond to the recession differently than an individual like you or I would. Businesses don’t just wait for a recession to be over, all that results from biding time is slow growth and eventually bankruptcy in your company. Companies need to grow out of recession. Recession is not some decade long occurrence. It took the markets a mere 18 months to recover from the economic collapse in 2000-2001, albeit it wasn't as severe as the current crisis, but projecting decades of economic turmoil is silly.

Jim Shepherd from AMR Research, a major research company for the Fortune 500 says;

"In a downturn, equally important is taking a long view on investments. Recessions are often a very good time to undertake infrastructure updates, process improvements, and application deployments. Buyers have maximum purchasing power in a down economy, internal and external resources are more readily available, and the implementation process can often be a catalyst for the kinds of new ideas and innovative business models that lead companies out of recessions."

This is exactly what the University is trying to do. We are updating infrastructure, and processing improvements to our business structure!

Not only will the Stroh Center be a great resource for the University, as much like how currently the Stadium,Anderson Arena, and Ice Arena all bring in money, national/media interest, and provide diversity and entertainment for the students.

As for our personal fee that we will have to pay, the fee will not be brought forth until the 2011-2012 school year. We don’t know what the economy will be like then. $60 dollars, of which $10 is for parking is not such a substantial amount. Sure, it is an inconvenience, but it is hardly bank-breaking. I understand we all have our budgets, but if you can’t afford $4 a week increase, than you most likely can’t afford to eat more than one meal a day either, and you might need to seek serious financial help.

3) “The new fee will last for 30-45 years”-Richard E.; leader of the Anti-Stroh Center protests.—The University just wants our money!

He has no idea what he is talking about at all. The fee is projected to bring in approximately $2 million dollars a year, until the construction debt is paid off. This means for 22-24 Million dollars, it will take approximately 11-12 years to pay off, give or take a year for interest/inflation.

4) The new Convocation Center is not an academic building! We don’t need it! We’re an academic institution!

While no classes will be held in the Stroh Center, declaring it void of any academic merit is like saying the Bowen Thompson Student Union or Recreation Center are unneeded for those very same reasons. Other than for Dance Marathon, I have never once used the Rec Center or field houses. Many students never even stepped inside those buildings, however these buildings provide entertainment, and serve the general good of the student body. The Stroh Center is no different. Men’s and Women’s basketball have averaged between 2600-1500 (Men) and 1600-900 (Women) in attendance over the past 5 years at each game.

Bowling Green is also home to a top 3 Sport Management schools in the nation, as well as having renowned programs in Athletic Training/Clinical Management; Human Movement, Sport and Leisure Studies (HMSLS); Kinesiology; Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC); Recreation, and Tourism (SMRT); Sport Enterprise; and Sport Marketing. All of these programs could benefit significantly from the building of the Stroh Center. Not to mention the possible internships available to Marketing and Business majors, again departments that BGSU is renowned for having.

5) We do not need another basketball court, we have Anderson Arena. No one cares about basketball anyways!

Clearly people do care, if almost 3000 people are in attendance at basketball games each week. Clearly these events are important in the student’s lives. Just as Anderson Arena was not used solely for Basketball, nor would the Stroh Center. The Stroh center would be used for many things, such as graduation; orientation and registration; political rallies, such as the Palin and Biden rallies of this past electoral season; summer leadership camps; high school basketball, volleyball, cheerleading, and band tournaments. It’s clear to see the benefits that the Stroh Center would bring to our University.

Furthermore, Anderson Arena is in disarray. The wooden floors are old and often swell and sweat, preventing it from use. Renovating the building and bringing it up to the quality of the Stroh Center would cost as much as the Stroh Center itself, if not more.

6) The students who will pay the brunt of this project have no vote in this/Don’t attend the University yet!

Only the current freshman class, and any sophomores or juniors who go on the 5-6 year plans will be affected by this. The future students of BGSU do have a voice though! They will choose if this University is right for them. That is their vote. I would be greatly surprised if a $60 dollar fee for a brand spanking new Convocation Center is the deciding factor on whether or not to come to BGSU. If the student body truly cares about only allowing those affected to vote, I encourage all non-freshman students to abstain from voting, however I doubt that will happen.

7) The people who donated millions of their own dollars just want to see their name on the side of a building!

Naming a building after the largest donor is nothing new. Let's not be naive here, of course they would name the center after Kerm Stroh, however, anyone who calls him greedy or vain must not know the lengths of philanthropy that Kerm Stroh—and all the other donors have gone through in the name of BGSU. As for Kerm, He never even attended BGSU! He has donated millions of dollars over the years in scholarships to a school that he never attended. I think the least we could do is name the new Convocation Center after his family.

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As a great supporter of Bowling Green once said, “Our loyal alumni and friends realize that investing in the University is a sound investment. Today we congratulate the entire campus community for their hard work.” – Kerm Stroh, co-chair of the Building Dreams Campaign after finishing the campaign raising $146 million dollars for BG academics.

Don’t let Kerm and the other donor's hard work and dedication be thrown away for no reason! The Stroh Center is good for our school and good for the students. Please vote in favor of the Stroh Center!

Also, GO FALCONS!

http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=54994574793

[Ryan Autullo]

Are cliff's notes available for this note?

[Ryan Autullo]

Forgive me for being a smart ass. Now I realize you're pro Stroh Center.

[Chimie]

The cliff notes are basicly: The large majority of the people against the Stroh Center don't have their facts straight. =)

[Falcon Commander]

VERY Nicely written Tom.

Keep up the good work.

[BGDrew]

I would just like to point out one of the heads of the anti-fee movement has his Facebook profile picture of himself in an OSU jersey.