Western Oregon Journal

Issue date: 10/12/07 Section: Headlines

Minahan

Weiss

Dukes

Sedgwick

Neal

By Gerry Blakney
Editor in Chief

Early this September, Western's administration, Campus Recreation and the Associated Students (ASWOU) started the process to recondition five acres of farmland to create new playing space for club sports. Two weeks later the campus is in a frenzy over the prospect of a new field.

The land in question is slated to become two, full-sized fields that will eventually be prioritized in favor of Western's club sports, other university use and will be available for miscellaneous
community uses.Rugby and lacrosse have received most of the media attention for needing the new fields, but Vice President for Student Affairs, Gary Dukes, wants to be clear that "the fields will not be exclusive to only the rugby and lacrosse teams."

"At this time, why we are bringing the space online (is) to provide better space for club sports," Dukes said.

Western administration notified the seed farmer, who previously leased the land from the university, early this September that five acres would be taken back and used by the university before the planting season began. The farmer will continue to lease the remaining 20 acres from Western for grass seed production at this time.

The men and women rugby teams currently practice on the Gentle House field that is rented out by Western's Foundation. The rugby teams lose access to their practice fields while the Gentle House hosts an event. The lacrosse team practices in an undeveloped, University owned field adjacent to the new Alder View townhouses. Both
teams have the present intramural field available for home games, though the lacrosse team has decided not to use the fields this year choosing instead to rent West Salem High School's artificial turf field for their upcoming season.

Preparing the field for play will cost the university $65,000 in an initial, one-time sum. Western's administration is paying for the field from the university's fund balance. The decision to pay for the fields from the university's general fund instead of asking the student fee committee (Incidental Fee Committee, IFC) for the money was made because of time concerns. The administration would not be able to present changes to the student fee committee for the field until Winter term and would not have access to the funds until July 2008 if allocated, delaying the project for at least a year. The university chose to pay for the field prior to the students voicing their concerns over the time line. No cuts will be made to the budget to pay for the new fields.

While the university plans to pay for the field reconditioning, there are no plans in place to fund the maintenance and up-keep of the fields. The fields have to be mowed once a week and watered, which will cost the university about 250 hours of labor or 4-5 thousand dollars in pure labor costs per year, but may result in the need to hire a new person to work in the field which may be even more expensive.

see club fields / 4


State guidelines. This process is still ongoing. An engineering firm is currently looking at the field and is working with the Physical Plant to determine how the field's drainage system will be organized to work with the current water patterns on site. The field will be leveled after engineers have finished evaluating the site's drainage needs and the fence is completed. Drainage and the irrigation systems will be laid once the field is leveled, after which grass will be seeded. A parking lot is also planned for the space to help alleviate current and future parking overflow, though how the field will be configured with the parking lot and the necessary street access has not yet been resolved.

"There is only one problem with why someone would say, 'next fall' [for the field to be completed]," said Western President John Minahan. "Grass doesn't grow very well without germination warmth in the ground and sunlight. Let's all pray for an early spring."

The fields are currently slated to be playable by next fall. If Monmouth is faced with an earlier than usual Spring, the fields may be playable as early as spring term, in time for the start of the lacrosse and half way through both of the rugby team's seasons, though the administration is skeptical. A second option that was explored, and subsequently ruled out because it was cost prohibitive, was the possibility of using artificial turf or sod. That option would increase the projects initial costs to approximately $500,000 for artificial turf and about $200,000 for sod.

Minahan quipped that "putting sod out there would be like putting a wool rug on a waxed floor- the rug will slide. If some day we decide to put artificial turf in, and we can afford it, we will put it on the main football field, and rugby and everyone can use the main field."

As a result of the administration's skepticism, ASWOU President Tiffani McCoy, in conjunction with the men's and women's rugby and men's lacrosse teams, have joined forces to form a coalition called the Students of the United Coalition. The Coalition has been busily petitioning for the Western administration to "get [the] fields developed within the next several months," according to a letter from the Coalition courtesy of rugby player Shawn Martin. Additionally, the Coalition waged a letter writing campaign to better explain to the Western administration why the fields were needed so soon.


The petition lasted for two weeks after which time the Coalition voted to remain vigilant with updates on the progress of the fields, but to cease petitioning and letter writing for the time being. The petition was delivered to the administration early this week, while the letters to the administration were delivered in two installments to President Minahan last week and this past Friday, Oct. 5. In total, the Coalition gathered over a thousand signatures and had over eighty letters written to the administration in a just under two weeks.


"The fact is everybody is working as fast as they can on this project; the easiest thing is to do the work which will get done fairly quickly," explained Minahan. "The hardest thing is to grow stuff in the winter. I was amazed that they thought they could petition faster grass. If we could get the fields done by spring, we will. I am anxious to get this done as soon as possible."


The petition and letter writing campaign has left the administration reeling.


Last Tuesday, Oct. 2, the Vice President of Business and Finance, Mark Weiss, walked into the Werner University Center to find petition signers asking the administration to make the new fields a priority. Betsy Hornstein and Katelyn Dzialowy, both women's rugby players, were running the petition booth that afternoon when Weiss approached them.


"He started to question us like crazy," claims Hornstein. "He was pretty aggressive the way that he talked to us. It was pretty threatening. It seemed like he wanted to shut down the whole field; I felt verbally attacked."


Hornstein remembers Weiss offered to take down the fence that would soon surround the new fields if the students wanted the administration to move up the completion date, effectively forcing the students to play on an undeveloped field. He continued to question Hornstein and Dzialowy until they finally referred him to Tiffani McCoy, the ASWOU President, for further information on what they hoped the outcome of the petition would be.


Weiss told the Journal, "If they wanted the field as it now exists then that is something they should ask about, if they wanted it immediately. And perhaps they can do that. They indicated that it was not safe to use in its existing condition and I agree to that, it is too uneven a surface to [play on]."


Hornstein recalls that the two ruggers were "caught off guard so bad. Katelyn and I just looked at each other and we were like, 'what is going on here.' He just ambushed us. I just think he is a jerk and he doesn't seem to care for students, especially the club sports."


Tiffani McCoy was surprised when Vice President Weiss then interrupted her meeting with lacrosse President Josh Butterwegge and McCoy's Executive Intern Tim Hasty, by walking into McCoy's office. Weiss immediately started questioning the students about the petition, again asking what the goal of the campaign was.


When Tiffani responded that the petition asked the administration to make the fields a priority, Weiss responded, "I am the administration." Weiss again suggested that the fence come down and let the teams play on the field immediately but was interrupted by Hasty with safety concerns. The Executive Intern is responsible for assisting club sports with the reconditioning of the fields presently and other issues as they affect Western's club sports teams in the future.


"I have been out on the field with Kevin Hughes (Western's landscape maintenance supervisor) and it is not safe field conditions," Hasty, who also plays on the men's rugby team, stated to Weiss. "Someone will get hurt."


McCoy then asked Weiss to leave her office and continued the conversation in the hallway outside her door. According to McCoy, Weiss claimed that the petition was the equivalent of her "having a temper tantrum" and that her job was to "be more logical and rational."


"If I said something about being realistic as to what we are trying to do, it would have to do with the timing of nature," Weiss later explained. "I wanted to know what they wanted us to do, again, being taken totally by surprise about the petition. I was trying to understand what it was we were exactly being asked to do. My response was only in the context that 'if you tell me, then you're telling the administration.'"


Hasty, in discussing the impromptu meeting, recalled that Weiss "seemed to have a negative demeanor towards us and what we are trying to do. Then he started getting, what I took as hostile, with very argumentative questions. He started throwing numbers at us, that we came to find out are not accurate, just to use it as a scare tactic towards us. He was very unprofessional in his attack, but it was kinda reassuring, it felt like a moral victory for me and Tiffani and all the club presidents because we are obviously trying to make a difference to improve the fields and to have him come in here and attack us just means that we are really putting pressure on the administration to make a difference. We have enough of a support base to really make a dent in the administration if they try to strong arm us. I almost felt like he came in here to make Tiffani, as well as the rest of ASWOU, a puppet of the administration."


Weiss said he felt like he was "being criticized for doing a good deed. The university heard what the students wanted and moved quickly to respond to that need."


Weiss described his own version of the day that included talking to the rugby girls and McCoy and, though he did not deny the statements, he did state that they had been taken "out of context." Weiss failed to comment further about the discussion between the ASWOU President and himself, claiming that he didn't know if it would be "appropriate to comment about a discussion (with another) individual."


President Minahan commented on the incident by saying, "I think he was irritated by the fact that this whole project was less than three weeks old and he was working pretty fast."

Currently, Western is hearing bids to fence in the new field space. The first bid for the project was cost prohibitive, according to Physical Plant director Tom Neal, and therefore the university was forced to seek the bids of at least three more contractors as required by State guidelines. This process is still ongoing. An engineering firm is currently looking at the field and is working with the Physical Plant to determine how the field's drainage system will be organized to work with the current water patterns on site. The field will be leveled after engineers have finished evaluating the site's drainage needs and the fence is completed. Drainage and the irrigation systems will be laid once the field is leveled, at which point grass will be seeded. A parking lot is also planned for the space to help alleviate parking overflow, though how the field will be configured with the parking lot and the necessary street access has not yet been resolved.

"There is only one problem with why someone would say, 'next fall' [for the field to be completed]," said Western President John Minahan. "Grass doesn't grow very well without germination, warmth in the ground and sunlight. Let's all pray for an early spring."
The fields are currently slated to be playable by next fall. If Monmouth is faced with an earlier than usual Spring, the fields may be playable as soon as spring term, in time for the start of the lacrosse and half way through both of the rugby team's seasons, though the administration is skeptical. A second option that was explored, and subsequently ruled out because it was cost prohibitive, was the possibility of using artificial turf or sod. That option would increase the projects initial costs to approximately $500,000 for artificial turf and about $200,000 for sod.

Minahan quipped that "putting sod out there would be like putting a wool rug on a waxed floor- the rug will slide. If some day we decide to put artificial turf in, and we can afford it, we will put it on the main football field, and rugby and everyone can use the main field."

As a result of the
administration's
spekticism,ASWOU President Tiffani McCoy, in conjunction with the men's and women's rugby and men's lacrosse teams, have joined forces to form a coalition called the Students of the United Coalition. The Coalition has been busily petitioning for the Western administration to "get [the] fields developed within the next several months," according to a letter from the Coalition courtesy of rugby player Shawn Martin. Additionally, the
Coalition waged a letter writing campaign to better explain to the Western administration why the fields were needed so soon.

The petition lasted for two weeks after which time the Coalition voted to remain vigilant with updates on the progress of the fields, but to cease petitioning and letter writing for the time being. The petition was delivered to the administration early this week, while the letters to the administration were delivered in two installments to President Minahan last week and this past Friday, Oct. 5. In total, the Coalition gathered over a thousand signatures and had over 80 letters written to the administration in a just under two weeks.

"The fact is everybody is working as fast as they can on this project; the easiest thing is to do the work which will get done fairly quickly," explained Minahan. "The hardest thing is to grow stuff in the winter. I was amazed that they thought they could petition faster grass. If we could get the fields done by spring, we will. I am anxious to get this done as soon as possible." •

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