Okay, so I’m reading this article (“A.S. Plans Power-Saving Project,” Daily Nexus, Nov. 10, 2009) about how Student Affairs has committed $3 million toward installa¬tion of “photovoltaic solar panels on more campus build¬ings as a waste control method,” and it turns my stomach.As if paying a dollar or two per kilowatt-hour is the smart and green way to eliminate electric bills where you’re now only paying 9 cents. And now SA and A.S. are acting just like sub-prime mortgage lenders … agitating the student body to pursue their green dream by trading their excel¬lent low-rent apartment for a mortgage of student fees for greenery that is beyond huge.

Nowhere do I see honest facts about how money-wast¬ing these photovoltaic projects are. Apparently Student Affairs and A.S. feel rich enough, during this drastic financial crisis and ageofmassive cutbacks,toburnmoney on photovoltaic projects that won’t earn a payback for 30 years. Then I have my stomach further turned reading in today’s sports pages about how Student Affairs is going into high gear, lobbying alumni and others to put pres¬sure on the chancellor to save the Education and Sports Sciences minor. Let me get this straight, Student Affairs:You’ve got $3 million to burn on solar cells and “feel good,”but you have the gall to cry poverty when it comes to ESS and cynically go into your agitate-the-students routine to divert the cuts from ESS to … where? … physics, history,sociology, math … where exactly? You’re making me pretty sick. Maybe one day the greater student body, and dare I say the Nexus, will feel queasy too and ask a good question or two.

Here’s a suggestion … don’t use the $3 million for solar cells. Don’t use it for the ESS minor either. Send it to the Financial Aid Office or send it back to the parents of the students who paid it.They could put it to much better use paying the higher education fees.

– Furloughed