STLCC discontinues men’s wrestling, soccer and women’s volleyball at Meramec, possible child care center cuts.
Collin Reischman
– Managing Editor –
STLCC-Meramec will lose four sports as of July 1, 2010, in the first of many steps taken by STLCC administrators attempting to cut $1 million from the district budget in the next year. Other services, such as the Child Care Centers at both Forest Park and Meramec, are facing impending elimination as well.
The athletic department cuts, which eliminated four sports at Meramec entirely and reduced each campuses sport count to five, will save STLCC nearly $200,000, according to an Oct. 23 press release.
Bob Bottger, manager of athletics at Meramec, has been in education for 40 years. “I’ve been around for plenty of budget cuts before for all different reasons. They happen. These have had the most direct ramifications on my specific area, though,” said Bottger.
While the STLCC press release on Oct. 23 listed “recent competitive history” as one of the factors in the specifics of the cuts, that didn’t help the Meramec men’s wrestling program, which is one of the most successful in two-year college history, with 29 consecutive winning seasons, and a second place finish in the NJCAA national championship in 2008.
“Every team that we lose bothers me. They’ve talked about making cuts before, but they never happened,” said Bottger. “We have to remember that the whole of the college is greater than any one part. We have to believe that this is to protect the success of the whole.”
Stephen Petersen, Ph. D, vice president of Student Affairs at Meramec, and Bottger met with the coaches and players of every team that would be eliminated to discuss the teams’ future.
Players who wish to compete in a sport no longer offered at their campus will have the opportunity to participate at one of the other campuses. According to Petersen, athletic scholarships will be honored next year for all athletes, regardless of the cuts.
“Emotions certainly ran high,” said Bottger. “I think that especially when you deal with athletes, they are naturally competitive emotional people, so they definitely felt pretty strongly about the whole thing.”
Petersen stressed the difficulty with which the decision was made.
“No one wants to penalize anyone. We don’t want to have to eliminate these teams and programs,” Petersen said.”Nobody wants to eliminate an academic program either, though.”
Another campus service on the verge of being eliminated is the Child Care Center. Offered at both Meramec and Forest Park, both campuses are now debating eliminating the programs entirely.
According to Earline Powell, Manager of the Child Care Center at Meramec, the staff was informed more than a year ago that they were facing extinction if they were not able to cut their costs.
“We were told to raise $150,000 in order to help with the cost of running the center. This semester [Fall 2009] is the first semester we’ve been allowed to implement our ideas, yet they’ve gone forward with eliminating us,” said Powell.
The new increases at the Child Care Center, doubling the hourly rate and initiating a five hour minimum, haven’t slowed the process of the new budget cuts.
The center is a necessity for students like Vivien Lindsey, whose 4-year-old son, Aiden, prefers Meramec to his former day center of more than two years.
“He comes home and tells me ‘I get to learn what I want to learn there,’” said Lindsey. “He uses new words and wants to tell me all kinds of things about volcanoes, because that’s what he learned about. He likes it there.” Lindsey is a full-time student who takes five classes and is determined to fight to keep the Child Care Center.
Lindsey will be one of many Child Care Center workers, along with concerned parents who will attend the 7:30 p.m. Board of Trustees meeting on Thursday, Nov 19 downtown at the Cosand Center. MoPIRG will be attending as well, with plans to try and persuade the board to let the Child Care Center implement new tactics to lower cost.
Student parents have recently begun circulating a petition on the Meramec campus, asking for students, faculty and staff to sign in support of keeping the Child Care Center.
“There are lots of options,” said Powell, “Parents can donate groceries, everyone is willing to make an effort I think.”
Parents are open to working harder, according to Lindsey, “I’d be willing to pay more, I’d volunteer my time. If it closes completely, I’ll have to drop out because I won’t be able to make it work without it.”
Another campus service on the verge of being eliminated is the Child Care Center. Offered at both Meramec and Forest Park, both campuses are now debating eliminating the programs entirely.
According to Earline Powell, manager of the Child Care Center at Meramec, the staff was informed more than a year ago that they were facing extinction if they were not able to cut their costs.
“We were told to raise $150,000 in order to help with the cost of running the center. This semester [Fall 2009] is the first semester we’ve been allowed to implement our ideas, yet they’ve gone forward with eliminating us,” said Powell.
The new increases at the Child Care Center, doubling the hourly rate and initiating a five-hour minimum, haven’t slowed the process of the new budget cuts.
The center is a necessity for students like Vivien Lindsey, whose 4-year-old son, Aiden, prefers Meramec to his former day center of more than two years.
“He comes home and tells me ‘I get to learn what I want to learn there,’” said Lindsey. “He uses new words and wants to tell me all kinds of things about volcanoes, because that’s what he learned about. He likes it there.” Lindsey is a full-time student who takes five classes and is determined to fight to keep the Child Care Center.
Lindsey will be one of many Child Care Center workers, along with concerned parents who will attend the 7:30 p.m. Board of Trustees meeting on Thursday, Nov. 19 downtown at the Cosand Center. MoPIRG will be attending as well, with plans to try and persuade the board to let the Child Care Center implement new tactics to lower cost.
Student parents have recently begun circulating a petition on the Meramec campus, asking for students, faculty and staff to sign in support of keeping the Child Care Center.
“There are lots of options,” said Powell, “Parents can donate groceries; everyone is willing to make an effort I think.”
Parents are open to working harder, according to Lindsey, “I’d be willing to pay more; I’d volunteer my time. If it closes completely, I’ll have to drop out because I won’t be able to make it work without it.”
EDITORS NOTE: Be sure to read the December 10 issue of The Montage for further coverage of the Child Care Center budget situation.
