UB Rebranding Bull

It's all over the news and was in my e-maul this morning: UB is re-branding itself.

Gone is the “State University of New York” and all that remains is the “Buffalo.”

And to me it's a load of bull.

I went to UB for my undergraduate years – 6 of them going part time & paying out of pocket. You could do that back then. I also voted against UB going to Division I. I was in favor of Division None – as in get rid of the entire inter-collegiate athletic program and spend the money on academics. That's what college was for and to me. I didn't watch sports back then and I still don't now. There's no “Super Bowl Fever” or “March Madness.” I think I was vaccinated against them and it actually worked, unlike the last how many years flu vaccines. (Can we get our money back for that?)

So UB is spending student tuition dollars on re-branding itself.

Big deal.

I graduated with a Master's Degree and I never went to any games in that 2 ½ years. I did have my studies interrupted by not being able to get a convenient parking spot near a library because there was a football game going on. UB lost every time. Serves them right as far as I was concerned. I was trying to learn something – the purpose of college – and they were busy making a mess of a poorly designed parking system with a football game.

Enough complaining about that.

What I wish the news would have gone into was how many adjunct professors UB has instead of full time professors.

I wish the news would have talked about how many adjunct professors have left over the years because they received a better offer from another college. Or were so burned out from stress that they dropped out of the system all together. My one friend did that. No more professor, back to public school teaching.

I wish the news would look at how much tuition money is spent on college sports versus how much is actually spent on academics.

I saw a report on Democracy Now! Where the interviewee mentioned that if college football teams were cut off from receiving funding from the college and had to rely on ticket and merchandise sales all but six would be in the red after year one. (David Zirin comes to mind.) So only six colleges are making any sort of profit off of their football programs. I would like to know if that study looked at baseball, hockey, soccer, basketball, and other sports. The NCAA makes money. Not the college. Certainly not the students that are stuck subsidizing the whole enterprise. No prize for them at the end.

So, related question, how much college debt that is being carried was actually used to provide an education and how much was used to subsidize college sports?

Related story – Headline on Monday in the Buffalo News dealt with college students not being able to use the Alumni Arena exercise equipment because it is being tied up by athletes. So they want to have another fee tacked onto their tuition to buy more equipment so that non-athletes can exercise.

Better idea: Drop the entire NCAA sporting program, turn the exercise equipment over to the students to use to stay healthy while on campus and use the money saved to provide for full time high quality faculty for the students?

And if the NFL, NBA, NHL, and other professional sports clubs need new athletes to fill their ranks, they can take the owners profits and use them to build farm teams – like the Buffalo Bisons and the MLB.

Why should we expect college students to subsidize an unprofitable industry like college sports?

And don't get me started on the stadium costs. That stadium was poorly designed and is just aesthetically ugly. Sad to say my taxes paid for that and will have to pay more for its demolition.

UB could have saved money by taking out a lease agreement with the Buffalo Bills at the Ralph. But then again, wise use of money was not in the plan anywhere.

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The only exception I will make to this rant is the UB Mad Turtles (Rugby). They are a student club that receives the same stipend that other clubs do – like the various religious organizations, gamers club, political organizations, and ethnic clubs.

I don't know what the hand symbol is that they use, but go Turtles.

What does a Mad Turtle look like?

And if there is a UB Socialist organization – if the e-mail this blog, I will pay for a subscription to the Socialist Action newspaper. Gift.

When the doctors told me not to get worked up, today's blog was probably not what they had in mind.

So I'll find a YouTube video of turtles playing rugby.

Very slowly.