Bad news for anyone hoping to get tickets to Michigan State or some other road game: this morning’s Observer states, “Ticket lottery is open to Notre Dame undergraduates only.” D’oh!
Lisa says she suspects the logic will be that grad/law students don’t pay Student Union Board fees, and it’s the Student Union Board that administrers the lottery. From the SUB’s perspective, that makes logical sense, but perhaps the broader question is: why is the undergrad SUB administering the lottery?? At some universities, it might be reasonable to treat student ticketing as an undergrad “thing,” because at some universities, grad/law students don’t tend to care about athletics. Such is NOT the case at Notre Dame. It seems to me, the lottery should be open to everyone who purchased student season tickets, whether undergrad, grad, law, MBA or St. Mary’s. We all paid for our season tickets, we’re all students, so we all deserve the opportunity to enter the lottery.
Having been a part of SUB while an undergrad, Lisa’s logic is indeed the logic behind it.
Theoretically then though, one would think that the Graduate Student Union should also be able to hold a separate lottery, if SUB is going to be exclusive of graduate students (which I don’t agree with, since SUB doesn’t exclude grad students from participating in other events) .Also, not having been a graduate student at ND, does graduate student tuition include the same student activities fees that the undergraduate does? If so, then it would seem that SUB’s logic is even more false, since part of your tuition dollars would then be going to help support their operation.
I don’t think we pay the same fee, but I could be wrong. And SUB does exclude grad students from some activities/clubs, but normally I don’t have a problem with that, particularly if they’re being funded by SUB money. My argument is that I don’t see how SUB money is being used for this. It’s not like SUB is paying for the tickets. It’s just a few people from SUB that sit and swipe IDs at Legends for a few hours. I doubt they’re paying to use the room at Legends or the card swiper. But my problem is that then grad students are completely excluded from having any opportunity to buy away game tickets through the school. If the Grad Student Union held a separate lottery, I wouldn’t complain.
Actually, there’s one rather major “thing” stopping us from doing that: the game is undoubtedly alrady sold out. So it wouldn’t be a matter of paying $$ to Michigan State, it would be a matter of paying $$$$$ to someone on eBay. No disrespect to Maryland, but I’m guessing the demand for the Terps’ home and away games alike isn’t quite as intense as the demand we Domers have to deal with. If we had known three months ago that we wouldn’t be able to enter the lottery for student tickets, then MAYBE we could have bought tickets from MSU. Or maybe six months ago. Or a year ago. Basically, whatever day they went on sale. Yeah.
Besides, getting tickets from MSU, would defeat the purpose of going as a group and sitting in the visitors’ section, with our fellow ND fans. The fundamental question is, why should law/grad students with student season tickets be denied the opportunity to potentially sit in the ND section with our fellow ND students? Yeah, we could buy a ticket in some random section, whether at a reasonable price from the MSU box office a year ago, or at an unreasonable price from an eBay seller today. But that’s not the issue. The issue is, we are STUDENTS, we should be able to enter the STUDENT lottery.
Wow that is completely and utterly ridiculous. I agree with you Brendan, why exactly is the SUB the ones allowed to do the lottery?? Why the heck doesn’t the atheltic department do it so its fair to EVERYONE. I say this is something to raise holy hell about.
I’m afraid you law students have been screwed on this–having been an ND undergrad, I know that law students are usually just as dedicated as the rest of the student body. Blame it on the MBA program and their terrible tailgating practices (horrible honky dancing and poetry reading). They have forever ruined the image of grad students as ND football fans.
Law students do pay an activities fee — but it goes to the law school, not the undergrad SUB. What really happened is that alumni wailed that they weren’t being allocated enough away game tickets so grad students got screwed. In a perfect world, with this justification, the graduate divisions would receive an allotment of tickets to distribute; unfortunately, ND exists not in the real world but in the bubble.
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September 4th, 2006 at 3:14:20 pm
That totally sucks! What’s the logic behind that decision? It seems discriminatory and unfair to me.
September 4th, 2006 at 3:20:57 pm
Lisa says she suspects the logic will be that grad/law students don’t pay Student Union Board fees, and it’s the Student Union Board that administrers the lottery. From the SUB’s perspective, that makes logical sense, but perhaps the broader question is: why is the undergrad SUB administering the lottery?? At some universities, it might be reasonable to treat student ticketing as an undergrad “thing,” because at some universities, grad/law students don’t tend to care about athletics. Such is NOT the case at Notre Dame. It seems to me, the lottery should be open to everyone who purchased student season tickets, whether undergrad, grad, law, MBA or St. Mary’s. We all paid for our season tickets, we’re all students, so we all deserve the opportunity to enter the lottery.
September 4th, 2006 at 3:41:06 pm
Having been a part of SUB while an undergrad, Lisa’s logic is indeed the logic behind it.
Theoretically then though, one would think that the Graduate Student Union should also be able to hold a separate lottery, if SUB is going to be exclusive of graduate students (which I don’t agree with, since SUB doesn’t exclude grad students from participating in other events) .Also, not having been a graduate student at ND, does graduate student tuition include the same student activities fees that the undergraduate does? If so, then it would seem that SUB’s logic is even more false, since part of your tuition dollars would then be going to help support their operation.
September 4th, 2006 at 4:16:42 pm
I don’t think we pay the same fee, but I could be wrong. And SUB does exclude grad students from some activities/clubs, but normally I don’t have a problem with that, particularly if they’re being funded by SUB money. My argument is that I don’t see how SUB money is being used for this. It’s not like SUB is paying for the tickets. It’s just a few people from SUB that sit and swipe IDs at Legends for a few hours. I doubt they’re paying to use the room at Legends or the card swiper. But my problem is that then grad students are completely excluded from having any opportunity to buy away game tickets through the school. If the Grad Student Union held a separate lottery, I wouldn’t complain.
September 4th, 2006 at 4:49:44 pm
You can always pay full price and pay $$ to Michigan State directly… There’s nothing stopping you from doing that!
September 4th, 2006 at 4:56:03 pm
Actually, there’s one rather major “thing” stopping us from doing that: the game is undoubtedly alrady sold out. So it wouldn’t be a matter of paying $$ to Michigan State, it would be a matter of paying $$$$$ to someone on eBay. No disrespect to Maryland, but I’m guessing the demand for the Terps’ home and away games alike isn’t quite as intense as the demand we Domers have to deal with. If we had known three months ago that we wouldn’t be able to enter the lottery for student tickets, then MAYBE we could have bought tickets from MSU. Or maybe six months ago. Or a year ago. Basically, whatever day they went on sale. Yeah.
Besides, getting tickets from MSU, would defeat the purpose of going as a group and sitting in the visitors’ section, with our fellow ND fans. The fundamental question is, why should law/grad students with student season tickets be denied the opportunity to potentially sit in the ND section with our fellow ND students? Yeah, we could buy a ticket in some random section, whether at a reasonable price from the MSU box office a year ago, or at an unreasonable price from an eBay seller today. But that’s not the issue. The issue is, we are STUDENTS, we should be able to enter the STUDENT lottery.
September 4th, 2006 at 10:45:04 pm
Wow that is completely and utterly ridiculous. I agree with you Brendan, why exactly is the SUB the ones allowed to do the lottery?? Why the heck doesn’t the atheltic department do it so its fair to EVERYONE. I say this is something to raise holy hell about.
September 5th, 2006 at 1:47:18 am
I’m afraid you law students have been screwed on this–having been an ND undergrad, I know that law students are usually just as dedicated as the rest of the student body. Blame it on the MBA program and their terrible tailgating practices (horrible honky dancing and poetry reading). They have forever ruined the image of grad students as ND football fans.
September 5th, 2006 at 9:35:42 am
Law students do pay an activities fee — but it goes to the law school, not the undergrad SUB. What really happened is that alumni wailed that they weren’t being allocated enough away game tickets so grad students got screwed. In a perfect world, with this justification, the graduate divisions would receive an allotment of tickets to distribute; unfortunately, ND exists not in the real world but in the bubble.