Re: UAA recruits
The Newsminer quote before that one is "Johnsen said he understands the important role intercollegiate athletics play in community engagement and university atmosphere, but also said he needs to think about the usefulness of costly programs during tough fiscal times."
Teams may not have to merge to one campus, but I don't get the feeling that there will be two teams in any sport, even the high profile sports. Understandably, Johnsen doesn't know what single institution accreditation means for academics, much less athletics. He'll be fairly guarded on any public comments until they learn more about the impact. He doesn't need a bunch of vocal Seawolve or Nanook fans making this more about sports than academics. Athletics will be collateral damage.
The State of Alaska already has the worst University system of all 50 states. By. A. Long. Shot. When effing Wyoming and Idaho can accomplish more in terms of sports than Alaska it's pretty pathetic. Sure, Alaska is a huge state with a small population and should be expected to be pretty low among the 50 states regardless of the comparisons you make in University (academic or athletic). But the difference is that the State of Alaska has $52,805,000,000.00 that's FIFTY-TWO Billion, EIGHT-HUNDRED and FIVE Million dollars.
If you stacked 53b in one dollar bills, the stack would reach nearly 3400 miles above the Earth's surface. You could buy EIGHTEEN-THOUSAND, ONE HUNDRED and SIXTEEN brand new effing Corvettes for just ONE BILLION. A person given $1,000,000,000 wouldn't be able to spend it in their lifetime on common consumer goods. It would take 49 years+ of just buying an effing Corvette EVERY DAY to spend a BILLION.
It's more of the continuing BS song and dance by the Alaska Knuckledragging Legislature to convince the common citizenry that the joint is broke. I'll happily admit that the yearly budgetary numbers are down and that some of the hand-wringing isn't ridiculous. There's no immediate revenue stream to replace the lost oil revenues. No doubt about it. Oh wait, except for the 52b in the savings account. Which typically grows at 2 billion a year and that is quite interestingly about the shortfall that the knuckledraggers are all whinging about. This is all about nothing less than the powers-that-be (the status quo power brokers) consolidating their hold on power by keeping the sheep in the dark as to reality. Fiscal conservative is an effing oxymoron these twats throw around to scare people because a scared electorate votes for the person that scared them.
There are myriad ways in which one can creatively utilize $53b dollars without existing infrastructure, social programs and/or universities taking any hits to their budgets. Small minded, petty and corrupt politicians are not capable of such thinking. So the result will be some effed up nonsense from a semi-incompetent middle level bureaucrat who's primary interest is to satiate the knuckledraggers? Eff that noise. Students, Faculty, Staff and neighbors of the Universities in Alaska should be out picketing; but they won't be. They're too locked into the false paradigm they've been programmed with for the last 30 years.
Alaska governance is an effing joke and they're turning the higher education system into a pathetic smelly one-holer.
