California State University, Stanislaus’ Associated Students Inc. (ASI) Board of Directors came to a decision on whether or not student athletes receive early registration. The meeting was held on Feb. 17  in the Events Center and was filled with student athletes, whose main concern is not getting the classes they need.
The ASI Board of Directors voted in favor of athletes receiving early registration, with a tally of 13-1-0. Student athletes make up less than 3% of the CSU Stanislaus’ population.
CSU Stanislaus is the only campus in the California Collegiate Athletic Association that does not give their athletes priority registration. Both the athletes and the opposing students had strong opinions during the open discussion, creating a atmosphere with increasing tension.
“The Resolution in Support of Early Registration for Student Athletes” states that “student athletes who do not obtain the classes required to progress towards their degree, may be ineligible to compete, as well as potentially lose their athletic scholarship […].”
While it is important that student athletes meet the requirements to compete, other students voiced concern about meeting requirements for financial aid, graduation, etc.
“I strongly feel the vote misrepresented the opinions of the school as a whole,” Kelly Cearley (junior, Liberal Studies) said. “It sends a message that athletes are basically the most important thing.”
Cearley was also concerned about the representative number of students in favor of athletes having priority registration at the forum versus the number of representatives against the change.
“The people who were appointed are supposed to represent the students,” Cearley said. “Therefore having seventy-plus student athletes versus about 4 anti-athlete priority registration students gave a skewed view of what reality was.”
Juan Villapudua, ASI Director of the College of Science, had the only opposing vote at the meeting on Tuesday. He was confronted by the students who were on his side, voicing their opinions to him.
“After the resolution was passed, a flood of students approached me infuriated with the outcome of our decision,” Villapudua said. “They feel that if we provide the privilege to student athletes their contributions to the campus community would be disregarded.”
Villapudua’s “Dissention to the Resolution” provided further insight on his dissenting opinion. It states that “by passing athlete priority registration, we would not only be upholding the values to distribute equal access for students as a university aims to service traditionally disadvantaged students.”
“I believe it is the easier route,” Villapudua said. “But the easiest route is not always the right route.”