Editorial: What $90,000 can do for UT

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In just one year, UT President Sharon Gaber and her staff have worked to increase enrollment, raise funds and cut costs by merging colleges. Hard work should be rewarded, and Gaber has definitely done her fair share to fix the image of the university. Our national media exposure has increased because of Gaber’s strategic goals, the university’s funding has increased and she has been working on a strategic enrollment plan that got the college out of the red and increased enrollment numbers.
However, the announcement of her raise and bonus has thrown the UT community into a tizzy. This news was released at a time when UT is implementing a three percent across-the-board budget cut and planning to use $5 million in reserve money to balance the general budget.
We at the IC are not bothered by Gaber’s raise. The raise was included in the contract she negotiated when she was first hired. She deserves to be rewarded for doing good work for the benefit of the university and earning what she was originally promised. Our only concern is that Gaber is awarded the maximum amount of bonus that her contract allotted for. To UT students and the surrounding community, $90,000 is a lot of money.
UT should be spending their money to improve the student and campus experience. Here is a summary of alternatives that we think Gaber’s bonus would be better spent towards: actual solutions to problems that UT students have been wanting solved.

Some departments are feeling the stress of shrinking faculty sizes. It would be a great idea to add two more professors to the payroll at a cost of $45,000 each per year. This doesn’t fix the large-scale staffing issues UT is currently experiencing, but it can stave off the issue for a while.
No student has ever turned away scholarship money. With $90,000, UT can make one-time scholarship offers of $9,000 towards ten students’ tuition for the semester. Another idea would be to offer 90 students one thousand-dollar value scholarships. This could make a huge difference to a lot of students. The university also estimates that a year’s average tuition costs about $18,580. That can provide complete tuition waivers for almost 5 students. Alternatively, it can fund a promising student’s entire period of studies.
Everyone knows of the infamous elevators in University Hall and Snyder Memorial. Even if you have class on the fourth floor, its best to avoid the elevator unless you want to fall to your death. Both students and professors alike are anxious when using these elevators. The cost of a commercial elevator for larger buildings like UHall could range between $75,000 and $150,000. A smaller elevator for Snyder Memorial could be anywhere between $20,000 and $28,000. With elevator shafts already in place, the cost could be lower. We imagine it didn’t cost much to replace the elevator that the president often uses in UHall. UT could have spent Gaber’s bonus to fix some of these elevators.
It also would also be super cool of the university to use that money to pay off the late fees students get on their library and school fee accounts. Sometimes all a student needs is a little free pass for their legitimate negligence.
Truthfully, $90,000 couldn’t result in a new roof over the student union, but it could buy a giant weatherproof tarp that we could drape across the building. Which is basically the same thing, right?
We love to support our Rocket teams. And who doesn’t love a free t-shirt? The experience can be made more colorful and fun if the university distributes more free “See you at the game” t-shirts and other paraphernalia. Our estimates show that the cost of printing a quality color-printed t-shirt on a 100 percent cotton material could be between $5.50 and $9.00. That’s at least 10,000 free t-shirts, even when we choose the expensive route.
With Gaber’s bonus, UT could afford to give 720 students a free parking pass in a raffle. If we are going to drive around for nearly 30 minutes looking for a parking space, a free $125 parking pass would almost take the sting away.
Students are stressed and some struggle to keep awake during finals week. UT can provide 20,000 free $4.50 valued Starbucks drinks for students. On second thought, they would probably prefer a share of the cash. But cash or drinks we assure you there’ll be a lot of happy faces on campus. Isn’t that what the university wants?
For $90,000, every student in the dorms could get a subscription to Netflix, Hulu and Amazon Prime and the university would still have almost $30,000 left over to adopt 100 dogs. ‘The Office’ and golden retrievers are the key to a student’s sanity after a stressful exam.
Almost forgot: how cool would it be to sponsor a selection of students on a fully-paid vacation trip with President Gaber or some other senior officer to go promote UT around the world?
This is a just a sampling of alternative projects that $90,000 can do for both the university and students. We believe in giving Caesar’s to Caesar – we really do. But we also ask the trustees to reflect on how some of these legitimate concerns can be addressed for the student and general community and how they are working to make the university better.

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Editorial: What $90,000 can do for UT