Central and Eastern Kentucky
(2009-10-28)
LEXINGTON
(Kentucky Public Radio) -
Controversy continues to swirl over a UK Board of Trustees decision to accept a 7 million dollar pledge from a pro-coal group to finance the construction of new men's basketball dorm facilities.
The group, collectively known as the "Difference Makers"' only requirement was that the building be named Wildcat Coal Lodge. That 7 million dollar condition has on-campus green groups, staff and faculty seeing red. UK English Professor Ann Marek, a noted critic of mountaintop removal mining, says like it or not, the coal group's offer is a brilliant PR move.
"I'd say the coal industry is worried. The mountaintop removal activist program has been very successful. It's now a nationally-known, now perhaps world-known issue. Many people are realizing the problems with coal, from global warming, to ecosystem degradation to, you know, contributing to the dead zone at the gulf of the Mississippi. They're in death throes. They're a cornered animal. They're going to do whatever it takes, and they've got the money."
In a news release from the UK Athletics office, Difference Makers spokesman Joe Craft says "Three of Kentucky's legacies that sustain our Commonwealth and its people are the University of Kentucky, Kentucky basketball, and the vital Coal industry of Eastern and Western Kentucky. These entities have again come together, and the result is a building and a project the entire Commonwealth will be
proud of."
The project still needs approval from state organizations, Capital Oversight and the Council on Postsecondary Education.
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