NEW ATHLETIC COMPLEX

To the Editors of the CRIMSON:

Harvard's facilities for non-intercollegiate athletics and extra-curricular activities are woefully inadequate. When our facilities are compared with those of the other Ivy League schools these inadequacies become glaringly evident.

The use of the IAB is limited to the times when the school's teams are not practicing or playing their games. Unfortunately this is also the time when the rest of the student body is free to put these same facilities to good use. Aside from this, the facilities themselves are in many cases poor. Squash courts, which are big attractions at other universities, are small in number and constricted in their use here.

In the non-athletic sphere, what other school of our size can you think of that does not have an auditorium with the capacity to hold a "crowd" of over 2,000 people. This inadequacy leaves the student with no concerts and a Teach-In that is witnessed by one-fifth of the people that were genuinely interested. Thus a new athletic complex would serve a dual purpose.

It seems, however, that Harvard purports a system of priorities which puts certain building projects ahead of what the majority views as more desired. Thousands of alumni would be willing to support the construction of an athletic complex. Obviously, in following their present strategy, Harvard is getting less money from alumni for less desired projects.

What can be done? Plans for a new athletic complex are ready but are being held up by this dubious list of priorities. Faced with relatively the same dilemma BU's students circulated a petition whose signees agreed, if the building was begun immediately, to pay an extra $25 each year they attended in a program spanning ten years. An extra $25 added on to our tuitions would be but a drop in the ocean when compared with the exorbitance of $2800.

Faculty desires are being put ahead of those of the students in a situation that could be easily remedied. Remedy it! Let the people be heard!