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October 04, 2005
Roll over, Lion, Roll over!
Not all professors make equal contributions to the Columbia community. Some go above-and-beyond. That's why it's sad to receive an email like this:
I'm sorry to announce that the 8th annual Juran Tailgate Party is cancelled. Despite diligent efforts by a competent and well-connected team of MBA '07s, we have been unable to secure a place at Baker Field for the party.This is a little sad, because I always thought the tailgate party was a good way to achieve several useful objectives:
- Introduce MBA students to the special experience that is Ivy League football
- Introduce international students to the unique American tradition of tailgating at football games
- Promote interaction between the business school and the greater university
- Spend some time with my students and alumni outside of the classroom
- Support the Lions
- Have some fun
(And we have effectively supported the Lions - at the previous seven tailgate parties Columbia has a winning record of 4-3, or 57.1%. Over the same seven seasons, without Juran tailgaters on hand, the same Lions were 15-48 for a 23.8% winning percentage. Coincidence? I don't think so.)
I still think these are all worthy goals, but this year it just doesn't seem to be working out. I am reluctantly pulling the plug on the October 15 event and making plans to go backpacking on the Appalachian Trail instead.
The root cause of all this is the new Athletic Department policy, under which parking passes for the Baker Field tailgate area are no longer for sale to regular students or faculty, as they have been in the past. Up until last year, one could walk up to the cashier in the Dodge Fitness Center and by a parking pass for a home football game for $25.00. We would drive to the game, bringing tables, grills, and coolers, and enjoy the Columbia version of a football ritual that plays out all over America on Saturdays in the fall.
Details are vague, but it sounds like the Athletic Department is (a) trying to reduce the university's exposure to liability related to underage drinking, and (b) increase the revenue it earns from athletic events, under the direction of the new Athletic Director, Dr. M. Dianne Murphy. So only "high profile" donors to the university (or those with better connections than we have) can get a parking pass, and regular students and faculty can't bring in their own food and drinks.
Here is the Catch-22:
"Patrons with reserved parking passes may transport alcoholic beverages into the Baker Field Athletics Complex"
"For the upcoming season, reserved parking at the Baker Field Athletics Complex is not available."
Believe it or not, those two statements come from the very same page at the Athletic Department's official web site:
http://gocolumbialions.collegesports.com/genrel/091905aac.html
We've tried our best to find a way around this, looking for other groups who might share their space at Baker Field with us. We have MBA students and alumni who have contacts as Columbia College alumni, former varsity athletes, fraternity and sorority members, but no one was successful. None of the three contacts given to me by the Athletic Department has responded to my messages asking for help or suggestions (Ken Catandella of the Columbia College Alumni, Eric Furda of the University Alumni, and Bill Ebner of the Athletic Department).
I want to thank the current students, led by Julie Morris A'07 and Alex Gumbs G'07, who tried to make this happen. I also want to thank Coach Al Carlson of the Athletic Department, who has always been helpful to us in the past. Maybe things will be different next year, and we can try again.
Some supplemental reading for those who are interested:
The Athletic Department's announcement:
http://gocolumbialions.collegesports.com/genrel/092105aad.htmlColumbia Spectator, Jake Olson September 21:
http://www.columbiaspectator.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2005/09/21/4331049f4c94aAbout our new Athletic Director:
http://www.ascribe.org/cgi-bin/spew4th.pl?ascribeid=20040824.085149&time=10+22+PDT&year=2004&public=1
This is not the way to convince fans to come watch football. If fans aren't allowed to tailgate, it's a good reason not to trek 100 blocks from campus (118th st) to the athletic fields (218th st).
I remember my freshman year at Penn, when the team won the Ivy championship and celebratory fans threw a goalpost into the Schuylkill River. Someone near me remarked, "so this is what it feels like to have a real football team!" It would be swell to have that feeling at Columbia and not vicariously through an affiliation as a Pennsylvania alumnus.
Ivy League liberal intellectualism, which has deep roots at Columbia (outside the refreshingly-conservative business school), includes distrust of both students having fun and athletes. So, in the name of risk management, the university has banned tailgating by anyone who doesn't pay at least $2500/yr in donations, thereby also assuring that Columbia won't have a "real" football team anytime soon.
The unintended consequences include at least one professor trying to spend time with his students and being shot-down. One would think that the university would be bending over backwards to help professors meet students outside the classroom and support university activities. Instead, it's the professors who have to go to extraordinary means--and still fail--if they want to do something besides giving lectures.
The game was to be against Penn; anyone who wants to go to the Penn Club and watch, let me know.
Posted by adrianjo at October 4, 2005 10:18 AM