to the consternation of some faculty members at Berkeley, the university's sports program is running multimillion-dollar deficits -- on top of the annual institutional subsidies -- that are requiring the university to make short-term loans to the sports program. Not only that, but Cal officials revealed that the central administration in 2007 forgave $31 million in previous loans to the athletics department to cover annual deficits.
There's probably never a good time for professors to find out that their athletics programs are draining university funds. But it's hard to imagine a worse time for such revelations at Berkeley, given that faculty and staff members are being furloughed and students are being shut out of enrolling.
That combination of factors has some members of the faculty at Berkeley up in arms, placing a resolution on the agenda of an University Senate meeting next week that calls for Chancellor Robert Birgeneau to end the annual subsidies, limit the department's spending to its actual direct revenues, require it to repay its outstanding loans, and ramp up faculty oversight of the sports program.
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