UVSC club funding fair?

OREM — In an effort to be fair, Utah Valley State College student leaders and administrators decided earlier this year to give all extracurricular clubs the same amount of funding.

So has the outcome been fair? The answer depends on whom you ask, but the move has generated quite a bit of discussion at UVSC.

Until this school year, UVSC used two funding tiers for its club sport teams — they had extramural clubs, which received funding from the school to pay for uniforms and coaches, and the intramural clubs, which didn't receive funds from the school and scraped by to pay for costs.

This year, however, in part because of a complaint of inequity, UVSC officials decided to do away with the tier system. No longer would the school support different club grades.

Perhaps to understand the issue better, take a step back a few years to 2003 when UVSC's athletics program jumped from the National Junior College Athletic Association to NCAA Division 1.

Some of the 16 sports that made the leap included women's softball, men's and women's volleyball and baseball. Because not all the sports clubs could — or would — compete at that level, the remaining clubs, such as men's rugby, hockey and golf, were put under the purview of the student government.

At the same time, UVSC operated intramural clubs for other activities, such as women's rugby, the chess club and the newly formed Xbox club.

However, extramural clubs received much more money than intramural clubs. By UVSC's definition, extramural clubs were the clubs that came from the athletic department when the school moved into the NCAA.

Intramural clubs either existed under the student government before the transfer of the other clubs or formed after the NCAA change.

Bob Rasmussen, UVSC dean of students and assistant vice president of student life, said it was a mistake to call the programs extramural because there wasn't a difference between those clubs and the intramural clubs.

The monetary difference between the two tiers stems from the transfer from the athletic department. Once moved, the extramural sports programs petitioned the student government for funds to help pay for their coaching and equipment needs.

The student government approved funds for the 2004-05 school year and renewed them later for the 2005-06 school year.