Dear University of Memphis alumni,
I recently read where, thanks to money you donated, The University of Memphis athletic program now has new offices. Thanks to your donations of more than $1 million, U of M basketball players now have a new lounge with leather couches.
I thought since you were feeling so generous, I'd like to propose to you a new project that might be even more appreciated than a new athletic office.
Don't worry - in a way, this project involves an athlete. You see, last week, Dawn-Marie Conaty was walking from her dorm at the Carpenter Complex to class when she was hit by a car. The car, driving way too fast down a road with no speed bumps, hit another car and pushed it up onto the sidewalk, striking Dawn-Marie.
Don't worry, she's OK. She's pretty bruised up and has a difficult time making it to class, but she still tells the story of how she almost lost her life with a laugh - but that's just Dawn-Marie. Now I know, unless you read The Helmsman, you probably haven't heard about this incident.
It's not like Dawn-Marie is Joey Dorsey after all. She does, however, happen to play on the golf team and even chose to leave her home in Ireland to come here for her education. So since athletics seem to be such an overwhelming concern to you, I'd like to pass along a concern of an athlete that happens to mirror several thousand other students on campus who don't play sports. I am sure you remember, but The University of Memphis exists between two rather busy roads. I am also sure you understand that the vast majority of our students are commuters and that the vast majority of The U of M's parking is located where students must cross those busy streets.
These are facts that no one in this city can change, but we can do something to make our students safer.
We can do something that may just transcend leather couches for basketball players. Thanks to miracles in engineering and science, there now exists technology that can allow students to make it from one side of a street to the other without even touching the ground.
Some call this miracle of the modern age a "pedestrian bridge." I call it "one of the most necessary structures that The University has ignored in what could be called an example of gross negligence." You may call it what you will, but the need for it, not only on Central but on Southern as well, is critical. You may ask, buyers of couches and chartered flights for athletes, why should you be concerned with such things? Because your concern is needed.
Our voices, the ones of the students who The University is supposed to serve, are so often ignored. Even though students are the main source of funding, we are almost never consulted. The University is taking our money to build a new University Center - they never asked if we'd rather OUR money be spent on something that could help protect students.
Instead, administrators say they are working on getting state funding for such projects and then sink our student fee dollars into a new UC that they hope will increase declining enrollment.
They say this most likely because they park in parking garages and don't have to worry about the danger of crossing Central or Southern.
They never had to consider jumping across a parked train because they couldn't afford another absence in English class. Without some kind of outside help, we may never see such safety essentials as speed bumps and bridges that multiple Tennessee high schools enjoy.
So please Mr. and Mrs. U of M alumni, help us make this campus safer. Before you give $1 million to a University to spend on basketball when this school has already spent more on hoops than most schools in the country, ask yourself how you could help even more students with your donations. Students like Dawn-Marie, whose injury could have been avoided by a few simple speed bumps along Central. Let us not forget the graduate student in 2004 who wasn't quite as lucky. Let us not forget the promises that were made for a pedestrian bridge after that student's life was cut short crossing Central. Let us not forget that every day without an appropriate safe crossing for U of M students is a failure by not only our school administrators, but by those who whoconsistently donate money to athletics in spite of very real academic needs.
Sincerely,
Trey Heath
