Students have access to many athletic facilities

Philippe Buteau/ Editor-in-Chief

Fees usually bring access. The same holds true for the various fees University students pay.

When the athletic fee increased earlier in May 2012 to $16.10 per credit hour, it was to cover the cost of moving from the Sun Belt Conference to Conference-USA.

Increased by 3 percent the year prior to $15.56,  the fee brought with it a renewal to the 2008 agreement between the University’s Division of Student Affairs and its athletics department, which guaranteed students access to athletic venues.

“A student-athletic facilities agreement is imperative for students,” said Helena Ramirez, former president of the Student Government Council at Modesto Maidique Campus and one of the signers of the agreement.

“Students pay into the athletic fee and have access through a process through SGA of the stadium, stadium club, baseball stadium, and arena,” Ramirez said in a message to Student Media. “This allows students the ability to use facilities for large scale events that in any other time would be difficult without the help of an agreement of the sort.”

The facilities include Alfonso field at the newly renovated FIU Stadium, the US Century Bank Arena which was also renovated earlier in 2012, the soccer field, baseball field, stadium club, and stadium suites. Along with those renovations, another action the University did earlier in 2012 was the 54-cent increase of the athletic fee.

During a hearing for the fee increase, Pete Garcia, executive director of sports and entertainment, said the exposure the University will get from C-USA will attract attention not only to athletics but to the academics as well.

“This is the one thing that, with all due respect to all other fees, actually brings value to the degree, it brings monetary value when they’re applying to jobs…” Garcia said.

Some of the attention Garcia mentioned also goes to athletic venues.

Wesley Hardin, assistant athletic director for facilities and operations, said in 2011-2012 nine requests to use athletic venues were filed and all were approved. As of this writing, Hardin has received eight requests.

It is not written in the agreement whether individual students can request an athletic venue for themselves, but it does recognize students who are members of Greek organizations, student organizations, or University departments.

According to Eric Arneson, assistant vice president for Student Affairs, high priority is given to student organizations.

“It’s easier to hold them accountable,” Arneson said.

Student clubs are able to hold their meetings either in the stadium club, locker rooms of the visiting team, or in a meeting room the R. Kirk Landon Football Fieldhouse is required to contain, according to the agreement.

Of the those venues, five to 10 requests are filed for the stadium club alone, according to Arneson. The club is a 6,500-square foot space that can hold up to 300 people.

Arneson said Greek organizations file the most requests because the number of members they have means they need larger rooms for meetings and holding events.

He also said student leaders of student organizations typically know they have access to athletic venues but he isn’t sure if that information trickles down to their other members.

Arneson approves applications after the SGC-MMC president approves, and the Campus Life director at Biscayne Bay Campus, Craig Cunningham, approves after the SGC-BBC president approves. He added that so far he’s always agreed with the SGC-MMC president.

“Space is a premium on this campus and whatever I can do to get students space, I’ll do it,” Arneson said.

The agreement also directly applies to the University’s various intramural programs. It is written in the agreement the head football coach, Mario Cristobal, will approve making the field available to intramural teams for their playoff and championship games.

However, Recreation Services, the department which manages intramural teams, has decided to not use one of the facilities guaranteed in the agreement.

“Because of availability, we wouldn’t be able to use the stadium,” said Rob Frye, director of Recreation Services.

Frye said they’ve made this decision because the University’s football team practices during the day and intramural championship games for flag football take place at night. If intramurals were to hold their post-season games at the stadium, Athletics would charge them for using the stadium lights.

Hardin, the person within Athletics who approves requests for athletic venues, said any charge Athletics places on student organizations and departments are done to cover overtime employees and equipment used after hours of operation.

“If an event occurs during the day then we don’t charge,” Hardin said in an interview with Student Media.

For example, Recreation Services would face a charge of $250 per hour for using the lights, according to Hardin.

Requests to use the stadium field must be placed 30 days in advance for review and approval, using the field must not interfere with the football program’s yearly operations: recruiting, training camp and mid-season training, regular season games, pro day, etc.

While the agreement was signed and has been in effect for more than a year, neither Recreation Services nor their intramural teams knew they could use the stadium.

“I was there during the vote and it was mentioned this could be a possibility, but nothing officially came to me,” Frye said.

Peter Perez, junior and member of the Pi Kappa Alpha intramural football team, said he never knew.

“I figured … intramurals were meant to be kept in the intramural fields,” Perez said. “No one has ever made that common knowledge. That gives us more of a reason to want to make the playoffs. A chance to play in a college stadium for the big cup isn’t something we’d want to pass up.”

Perez’s teammates, senior Santiago Figueroa and junior German Quesada, both had no idea and think using athletic venues would be a positive for the University.

“I don’t think anyone knew, but I’m sure we’d jump on the first chance to play a football game in the cage, a soccer game in the official pitch, a basketball game in the arena,” Figueroa said.

“If there’s a chance of playing in any of these arenas it should be taken advantage of being that it would attract a larger audience to these events,” Quesada said.

Additional reporting by Jonathan Jacobskind

philippe.buteau@fiusm.com