Ohio State President E. Gordon Gee visited the Lantern newsroom Tuesday to discuss a broad range of university issues with the paper’s editors. Gee said the visit was his last stop on a tour of newspaper editorial boards, which he took to voice his support for State Issue 1, a $700 million bond issue that would extend a program to fund science and technology initiatives.

OSU “muffed” parking notification

Landing a prime parking spot for tailgating at Ohio State football games requires a $5,000 donation to the university. The requirement had been loosely enforced, though, until an audit revealed that those 426 of the 4,605 people who qualify to park in reserved lots on game days had not donated.

OSU recently sent letters to those 426 tailgaters, informing them that they would not be eligible to park in those spots next season if they did not make the required donation.

When asked if the parkers were blindsided by the letters, Gee was contrite.

“We muffed that one big time,” he said. “I think that we were a bit ham-handed in the way we handled it.”

The donation requirement is nothing new. OSU’s development system has a point system that tracks donations, and those with the most points receive better parking spots. Gee said that while he was in favor of rewarding donations to colleges and facilities within the university, the Athletic Department wanted to collect the parking donations. The Athletic Department is financially self-supporting, and contributes millions of dollars from its revenues to OSU’s overall operations each year.

“The athletic argument is, ‘Well, you expect us to be self-supporting, but you can’t take the money twice and give it to [the chemistry department] from our general budget and … from parking also.”

Justifying the tution increase

After a three-year freeze for in-state undergraduate students, OSU tuition will almost certainly increase next year. A subcommittee of the Board of Trustees recently approved a proposal to increase tuition by 7 percent by Autumn 2010. The proposal will be presented to the entire Board for approval in May.

Gee echoed the recent public comments of other university officials, noting that OSU’s costs will remain among the lowest of Ohio’s selective universities. OSU should have kept pace with the other Ohio schools that raised tuition, Gee said.

“I think that is ultimately not in the best interest of the institution. We should have been competitive with our peers because of the fact that tuition is a source of revenue that provides quality of education,” he said.

Gee said that the return that OSU students received from their tuition costs was “extraordinary,” and that tax dollars that supported OSU achieved results.

“I believe taxes are good, I believe they provide good schools and good services. I’m not one of those who believes that taxes are an enemy of the state,” he said.

Smoking ban?

Gee said that he would be “absolutely supportive” if he received a proposal to ban smoking on OSU’s campus.

“I would welcome that. I think that smoking is an irresponsible habit, and I would hope that anyone who does it would stop,” he said.

Gee previously headed Vanderbilt University, which is among the nation’s smoke-free campuses. When asked how the smoking ban was received at Vanderbilt, Gee said that the reception was “alright.”

“It’s a small campus, they could go off-campus and do it, whereas here, you’d have to travel to Fort Worth to do it,” he said.

No proposal to ban smoking on OSU’s campus has crossed Gee’s desk to date, and Gee noted that such a proposal is not his chief concern.

“I’ve got a lot of priorites in the world, and a smoke-free campus is not at the top of my priority list. But if someone came to me with a proposal and we could make that happen quickly, I would be the first in line,” he said.

Gee on sports

Gee touched on a number of sports topics, including the football and basketball postseasons and the ability of the Athletic Department to be self-supporting.

OSU’s Athletic Department, which faced a $2 million budget deficit for the fiscal year ending in June 2009 before closing the shortfall through cost-cutting, raised ticket prices for football and men’s basketball and fees for its golf courses. Gee was asked if OSU would consider cutting non-revenue sports if the budget picture worsened.

“As we take a look at the economics of it, if we start running a deficit, then we’ll start thinking about [cutting sports]. Right now we are not running a deficit,” he said.

Gee also commented on the recent proposal to expand the NCAA tournament. Gee said that the proposal was “dumb.”

“This has been the most exciting tournament I’ve seen in my life. Why take a good thing and make it worse?” he said.

Gee became animated while discussing the proposal, thumping the table with his hands and saying that the proposal was designed to generate more revenue from TV contracts.

“It’s the same reason I’m opposed to a college [football] playoff system. It’s all a slippery slope toward professionalization. It’s all about money. It’s not about the student-athlete, period.” he said.

Gee said that he would have opposed the current 64-team basketball tournament, but even though it was in place, the tournament did not need further expansion.

“You don’t say, ‘Well, the horse has left the barn, let’s just go crazy,'” he said.