Stay up to date with notifications from TheĀ Independent

Notifications can be managed in browser preferences.

Critics pan planned $450M Nebraska football stadium renovation as academic programs face cuts

University of Nebraska officials have unveiled a plan for a $450 million renovation of its football stadium in Lincoln

Margery A. Beck
Friday 08 December 2023 13:11 EST
Nebraska Stadium Academic Funding
Nebraska Stadium Academic Funding

Your support helps us to tell the story

From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.

At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.

The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.

Your support makes all the difference.

The University of Nebraska is planning a $450 million renovation of the Cornhuskersā€™ football stadium in Lincoln and at the same time looking to cut millions of dollars from the university system, leading critics to question whether officials care more about athletics than academics.

Faculty at Nebraska and nationally acknowledge the importance of athletics at a Big Ten university but said the divergent funding plans send a message that teaching and research take a back seat to Nebraska's football program.

ā€œIf an institution is putting zillions into athletics at the same time they are proposing cuts to academic programs and faculty, they have their priorities all wrong,ā€ said Irene Mulvey, president of the college faculty advocacy group American Association of University Professors.

Mulvey, a mathematics professor at Fairfield University in Connecticut, said it's incumbent on university and state leaders to promote a university's core academic mission to donors to ensure those programs and staff are adequately funded.

The high-priced Memorial Stadium renovation was given preliminary approval this fall, even as the four-campus University of Nebraska system faces a $58 million budget shortfall that threatens to cut staff and academic programs. That includes deep cuts at the University of Nebraska at Kearney, where students and staff have protested the school's announced elimination of its geography and theater programs, as well as cuts to other humanities offerings and its cybersecurity program.

The University of Nebraska-Lincoln ā€” the system's flagship campus and home of the Nebraska Cornhuskers ā€” and the University of Nebraska-Omaha also are anticipating academic program cuts to deal with shortfalls blamed on inflation, stunted revenue growth and declining enrollment. UNL has also proposed cutting its Office of Diversity and Inclusion budget by more than 70%.

The cuts mirror those seen at universities across the country that have also been targeted by Republican lawmakers in a broad culture battle taking aim at schools' college diversity initiatives, tenured professors, humanities programs and even how colleges can teach and discuss race.

The struggle facing college academia comes as a string of high-profile, high-dollar issues highlight just how much money is pouring into college athletics. That includes multimillion-dollar payouts to fired college football coaches, billion-dollar athletic conference media contracts that send millions a year to member schools and yet-to-be-decided court cases that could see some of that money going to pay college athletes.

The optics of seeking a nearly half-billion dollar stadium renovation while cutting academic programs ā€œare awful,ā€ said UNK political science professor William AvilĆ©s. Equally as bad are the ballooning salaries of university administrators, such as the $1 million annual pay to the outgoing NU President ā€” a nearly 40% increase over his predecessor ā€” as academic programs are being cut.

On the UNK campus, ā€œthere's a mixture of anger, frustration, resignation,ā€ AvilĆ©s said. ā€œIt's just another example of misplaced priorities.ā€

Nebraska's stadium proposal has also drawn notice because it supports a football program that seems to have been living off its long-past glory days. Nebraska was once a national powerhouse in college football, claiming five national championship titles since the early 1970s. But the Cornhuskersā€™ last championship win came in 1997, and the program has steadily declined since, cycling through six head coaches and going the last seven years without a bowl game appearance.

Despite the decades-long slump, Nebraska football remains exceptionally popular in a state with no other Division 1 college football program and no professional sports teams. Nebraska Athletic Director Trev Alberts said in a September announcement that catering to that fan base played a large role in the stadium renovation, which will include more restrooms, more concourse connectivity to make it a true ā€œbowl," widened walkways and adding chairbacks for stadium seating. But it will also cut the stadium's capacity by about 15,000 seats from its current capacity of 90,000 ā€” reversing work in the previous decade that spent millions to increase seating capacity from around 75,000.

The reduction is necessary to increase comfort and amenities and keep the stadium a draw for fans, he said.

ā€œThere's been a lot of changes in college athletics,ā€ Alberts said. ā€œWhat started out for me as a very simple modernization plan based on amenities relative to fans' expectation has very quickly changed into a business strategy for the next 25 to 50 years.ā€

Nebraskaā€™s athletic department is among a handful in the country that is self-sufficient, operating without taxpayer or tuition dollars. But when asked at a recent news conference whether he could pledge public money would not be used for the stadium renovation, Gov. Jim Pillen ā€” himself a former Nebraska football player ā€” refrained from making that commitment.

Asked this week by The Associated Press whether he's considering state funding of the project, Pillen's office said he is not including any funding for Memorial Stadium in his proposed budget.

Alberts and other university officials say the project will not use taxpayer money, instead relying on private fundraising and the athletic department's surplus funds.

ā€œIn other words, we could stop the stadium project today, but that would not do anything to mitigate the $58 million shortfall,ā€ said Melissa Lee, spokeswoman for the University of Nebraska. ā€œThe dollars that will fund the stadium renovation cannot otherwise be used to pay university salaries or keep the lights on or fund an academic program.ā€

Some in academia want to see private fundraising for academic programs and staff, much the way athletics raises money for athletic programs.

UNL sociology professor Christina Falci, who is president of the American Association of University Professors' UNL chapter, said higher education fundraising outside of athletics is concentrated mostly in boosting research centers, student services and endowed chairs, not in aiding humanities and the professors who teach them.

Without a push to bring in such revenue for academia, she said, ā€œyou're going to shrink the breadth of courses that students can take.ā€

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in