Proposed rock wall put on hold
The rock wall funding will be reassessed in the spring. ORACLE FILE PHOTO
Hold off on buying climbing gear. The proposed $239,500 Campus Recreation rock wall has hit a setback.
Due to funding considerations, Campus Recreation will re-evaluate whether the rock wall is a necessity. A decision will not be made until the Activity and Service fee allocation process has been completed in the spring.
A Student Government (SG) task force was created for the rock wall to assess its research and development. The 14 members include Student Body Vice President Shaquille Kent as the chair.
Eric Hunter, director of Campus Recreation, advised the task force to wait until after the A&S process because he did not think the timing was appropriate.
The rock wall funding would come from A&S funds, which students pay with a flat fee of $7 a semester and $12.08 per credit hour.
Senate task force member and Finance Chair Salud Martinez said in a Senate meeting earlier this month that the $300,000 unallocated cash request — which comes out of the A&S unrestricted reserve account — that would fund the wall would not be pursued.
Martinez also said that Campus Recreation pushed back the rock wall due to A&S funding it would like to prioritize.
According to Hunter, SG believed the best course of action was to seek funding through the unallocated cash request process, which included coming up with a business plan to present to the SG Finance Committee.
A business plan was developed, according to Hunter, but the timing of the presentation coincided with the main A&S allocation process.
Discussions about the rock wall were shared last year through student surveys on the class Facebook pages. There was an overwhelmingly positive response, with 572 students saying yes and 104 saying no.
Hunter said that he hopes the spring semester will allow students to have a more complete picture of the financial situations and make a more informed decision about the funding.
“The main reason we wanted to separate the issues was due to the complexity of our large Campus Recreation budget request,” Hunter said in an email to The Oracle. ”It takes a lot of effort for that request and we didn’t want to confuse the issues.”
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