MY TURN: NIC trustees fail athletic program
During my 10 years as a university president, I had the good fortune to work with exceptional boards of trustees who were fiercely loyal to the mission of the university, forward-looking, fiscally responsible and great partners with university administration. They always acted in the best interests of the university and not their personal preferences.
Sadly, the same cannot be said for the trustees of North Idaho College, whose actions have led to the real threat of the loss of accreditation. Much has correctly been made of the high-profile controversies over personnel and outside contracts. However, while provoking much less public controversy, the decision to move the college athletic program from the Scenic West Athletic Conference to the National Junior College Athletic Association provides a more insightful example of the failure of the trustees to execute their duties responsibly. Let me explain by first examining the fiscal implications of this move and then examining the move in the context of the college’s mission.
NIC trustees voted to provide tuition, fees, books, room and board, and one round trip flight for all 152 student athletes at roughly a cost of $40,000 per student, increasing the current athletic budget from $2.2 million to upward of $6.2 million. Let’s put this number into perspective. Total tuition collected by NIC for 2024 is a bit under $10 million. Imagine for a moment that the trustees had decided to provide tuition relief, and to be ultra-conservative, that the net new cost of changing athletic conferences is “only” $2 million. In gross terms, it means that tuition could be reduced by at least 20%. For the approximately 2,000 full-time students, this would translate into a scholarship of over $1,000 per year. If the full $6.2 million of additional athletic costs were reached, that would be the equivalent of cutting tuition by half.
Why use tuition as the example for “what if” monies were allocated differently? I would argue that it goes to the heart of the mission of community colleges including, if not especially, North Idaho College. Let me preface these remarks by noting that I enjoy college athletics and believe that at some level, depending on the institution, they contribute to the student experience and institutional success. However, making athletics a budget priority over academics and especially student access is simply misguided, especially for an institution like NIC as reflected in its mission statement: “North Idaho College meets the diverse educational needs of students, employers and the northern Idaho communities it serves through a commitment to student success, educational excellence, community engagement and lifelong learning.” The mission statement is amplified by the Vision Statement: “As a comprehensive community college, North Idaho Community College strives to provide accessible, affordable (emphasis added), quality learning opportunities. North Idaho College endeavors to be an innovative, flexible leader recognized as a center of educational, cultural, economic and civic activities by the community it serves.”
The current athletics program provides a number of benefits to the college and to athletes. The college enjoys more visibility, and it can be argued that the non-athlete student experience is enhanced. Student athletes, in turn, are given the opportunity to continue to compete in sports that they love. Even in the current conference, though, providing these opportunities is not cheap, more than $10,000 per student athlete per year. The shift to the new conference and fully funding scholarships for student athletes will possibly balloon that number to $40,000. Even if the actual costs prove to be half that number, how can this budget priority possibly be justified in the context of the mission and values of North Idaho College?
The answer, of course, is the failure of the NIC board of trustees to execute their duties responsibly, to put personal preference over institutional interests. As reported in the Coeur d'Alene Press, Trustee Banducci justified these expenses by arguing that, “If you want to attract the best athletes and be competitive, you have to have the best offering to students.” For schools like Georgia and Alabama where athletics is a big money and prestige maker, attracting the best athletes is an institutional priority. For a community college, such an emphasis undercuts its core mission to serve the academic and vocational needs of students and the community. North Idaho College and North Idaho deserve to be better served by the NIC trustees.
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David Hodge is a Hayden Lake resident.