Your View: Student Union Issue Still Alive

Editor, The Auburn Plainsman

Auburn treasures Caroline Draughon and Evelyn Jordan, in a capital campaign video more than a decade ago, observed independently that ourUniversity's students were losing appreciation for Auburn's past.

Not R. Nathan Payne '08.

Not countless others who know of James E. Foy, other than Auburn trustees.

In a Facebook appeal gone viral, Payne bemoans what he perceives as an "ideological shift from focus on family and tradition to a focus on money and branding," citing the pay-to-play policies in the student-funded Student Center, turning that hub into pre- and post-game skyboxes.

Woe betides the hapless student who wanders into that complex without big bucks on a game day. What's next: subway-style turnstile tokens?

But the piecemeal rental of students' home-away-from-home pales to what's going on outside the building.

You see, the trustees are saying, when we dedicated the James E. Foy Student Union in 1978 in honor of 28 years of loving, inspired leadership as dean of students, we didn't mean, like, forever.

Anybody who ponies up $25 million can have his or her name on Auburn's student center, even if they prefer Big Al to Aubie.

Watch out Samford, Greene, Biggin, Funchess, Smith and Draughon.

Money talks in the Loveliest Village.

Pete Pepinsky

Class of '69 Alumnus