It’s Time to End The Manufactured Drama Between Arts and Athletics

Can we stop the budget wars already?

Pandemic Panic

Around the nation schools and communities are reevaluating their budgets with an eye to cuts. Schools across the nation are laying off faculty/staff, issuing furloughs, and considering cutting vulnerable programs. We’re in a free-fall of monetary loss, and the Feds only seem interested in propping up the biggest of businesses/elitest of supporters. What’s a community rec center, school district, or institution of higher ed to do?

“Trim the fat!”

Problem is, of course, most of us have no fat left to trim.

Iowa State University has recently been in the news due to the worryingly high number of Covid-19 cases in Ames. Now we’ve landed ourselves another news-worthy story: the possible closing of C.Y. Stephens auditorium to augment ISU’s projected loss of revenue. The plan (as reported by the Des Moines Register) was proposed by Athletics Director Jamie Pollard and reeks of ages-old acrimony between sports and arts; two essential sectors of entertainment and education that are oft pitted against each other at great cost not only to the art community (which often suffers the greatest funding cuts) but to the community at large.