Senate Resolution on ESPN Revealed for First Time

By Sebastian DiNatale

President Riggs’ announcement last Tuesday about ESPN coming back to campus has been received with mixed feelings. Some students are delighted to have the 24-hour sports programming back on campus, while others are questioning where an institution which has had to make major budget cutbacks, like a $20 visit fee to health services, is going to find the $34,000 necessary to pay for the coveted channel. One major factor that played into the President’s decision was the Senate’s official position with respect to ESPN.

At last Monday’s specialty session of Senate, both the Executive Board and senators drafted a viewpoint on where it stands. It was quickly sent to the President, and in less than 24 hours the decision was made. But while the senators were aware of the stance, the rest of the college community was left in the dark.

For those interested in what the document claims, it combines a brilliant mastery of elegance and conservativeness.

Based off questions such as “Why do other institutions have ESPN and we pay more tuition and we don’t” and “Why wasn’t the student body involved with this decision,” the Senate drafted a voting rubric and offered four options which senators could pick.

The option selected by Senate was:

“Student Senate recognizes that ESPN is an important part of the campus culture for many of the students who attended the Student Senate meeting on 9/7/09, and that there are likely many other students not present at the meeting who share this perspective. We also recognize the need for the College to make budget cuts in response to the institutional budget challenges caused by national economic issues. After discussing the reasoning behind the College’s decision to cut ESPN from the campus residential cable package at our 9/7/09 meeting, we have determined that we believe that the institution’s decision to eliminate ESPN was a reasonable response to a challenging budget situation.”