So what words come to your mind when you think of Regents getting an almost-free trip to Las Vegas from the NIU Foundation?

“Stroke me. Stroke me,” are the first words that come to my mind.

In case you don’t know, the NIU Foundation helped three voting Regents and two student Regents pay for a trip to Las Vegas last weekend to watch the Huskies beat the University of Nevada.

The NIU Foundation, which receives its funds from private donations, doled out about $1,500 to pay for the Regents’ airline tickets and hotel rooms.

The Executive Director of the foundation, Richard Ubl, said that the trip was “a good investment” because the Regents make important decisions about NIU and we want to be “friends” with them.

I don’t buy that explanation.

To begin with, the Regents are all appointed by the Governor and are not paid. They all knew that before they accepted their posts.

They already get free tickets to university events and are very well treated by host universities.

But the universities governed by the Board of Regents are not responsible for providing the Regents with vacations—and a trip to Las Vegas, where the Regents’ only obligation is to watch a football game, cannot be called anything other than a vacation.

Such generosity on the Foundation’s part is questionable at best.

I really hope that a Regent’s vote cannot be bought by a weekend get-away, and I don’t think it will influence their votes. However, if a Regent were to become accustomed to such pleasure, to the point where he expects such treatment, he would not take kindly to this little fringe benefit being withheld one year—and that could definitely affect the way he might vote. It’s only natural.

I also cannot understand why student Regents were invited. They don’t have a vote on the board, so it’s not as if making them better “friends” of NIU is really going to make a difference.

Nick Valadez, NIU’s student Regent, deserves a loud round of applause, however. He refused to go on the trip as a matter of “principle.”

The other two student Regents obviously don’t have the same moral substance Valadez has.

Maybe I’m shortchanging these students. But the only possible reason I can think of for these non-NIU students wanting to see an NIU football game is the location—Las Vegas.

Would these students want to see an NIU football game if it was played at—say—Akron?

STROKE. STROKE. STROKE ME.

Ubl defends the trip as “a good investment.”

But if he really wanted to make a good “investment,” he should have invited an exceptionally generous contributor, or a business executive who might be persuaded to donate a few G’s to a university that wants him as a “friend.”

Some of the administrators at this place should get out of their ivory towers and make an effort to understand how the students of this campus feel about such follies.

Times are tough and most students on this campus would be considered to be living at or below the poverty level if they were not students.

Most students cannot easily afford the upcoming tuition increase. If these administrators were to ask them how a mere $1,500 should be spent, they’d get answers like … scholarships … or help to make it possible for student employees get that big five cents an hour raise they’re entitled to.

Maybe I’m wrong. But doesn’t the Board of Regents exist to do what’s best for the university? Why do they need incentives to do their job?