University Times

Priority seating fee policy angers faculty

Like a beleaguered um- pire, Chancellor Mark Nordenberg has promised to step in to resolve a scuffle between University Senate leaders and the athletics department over priority seating fees for home foot ball games.

Since the 1980s, the athletics department has charged extra fees for seats in priority sections of Pitt Stadium. But faculty and staff who held season tickets before the advent of priority seating fees are exempt from paying the fees, which next fall will range from $50 to $250 per seat.

Nonetheless, the priority seating surcharge appeared on 1998 season billing statements mailed to season ticket holders in priority sections, including the supposedly "grandfathered" faculty and staff ticket purchasers.

After Senate officials complained, athletics waived the assessment for grandfathered employees who telephoned the department.

This spring the priority seating surcharge again appeared on billing statements mailed to all ticket holders with priority seats — including grandfathered faculty and staff.

Athletics officials say they will honor all cases of grandfathered ticket holders. Such employees need to phone the athletics ticket office, Athletics Director Steve Pederson said.

Employees without documentation that they are exempt from the surcharge will be reviewed on a case by case basis, the athletics department's development director said.

But that policy is "untenable" because it puts the burden on employees, according to Herbert Chesler, co-chairperson of the Senate's benefits and welfare committee. The athletics department's refusal to correct its policy this year "amounts almost to cont empt for the faculty," Chesler said.

At Chesler's urging, Faculty Assembly adopted a motion May 4 calling on the Chancellor's office to order that grandfathered ticket purchasers be notified that they are exempt from the surcharge. Such employees who already paid the fee must get refunds, th e Assembly said.

The motion further asks the Chancellor's office to instruct Athletics Director Pederson "to consult and engage in meaningful dialogue with" appropriate Assembly committees to create a policy for employees to purchase season tickets for Panthers football i n the post-Pitt Stadium era.

At Monday's Senate Council meeting, Chancellor Nordenberg said he'd been out of town and had just received the letter notifying him of the Assembly's motion. "I will try to address it in a timely fashion," Nordenberg pledged.

Apparently, there has been miscommunication on the priority seating issue, the chancellor said. Only recently, Nordenberg said, the Senate athletics committee's chairperson had told him the issue was resolved.

"There is some need to bridge a gap in understandings or communications, and I'll try to be that bridge," Nordenberg told Senate Council.

— Bruce Steele