Again Thanks
You cleared up my thoughts on this considerably.
Some of the university's arguments sounded almost reasonable at first glance especially when I tried seperating out my own personal biases.
Here are my views.
Personally I can't see the university giving any money for the project. Donations earmarked specifically for these foot wash stations would be fine. At my old university I believe that's how the Southern Baptist chapel and meeting building was built and is maintained.
The muslim foot in the sink not being clean seems to be an almost racist statement and is silly reasoning especially if said foot is washed 5 times a day.
A foot usually inside a shoe the majority of the time is almost certainly cleaner than a person's hands.
Don't they know hands are a major vector for the distribution of sickness? I wish students would wash thier hands 5 times a day, even if it was in a sink just used to wash his or someone elses feet.
This foot in the sink excuse is really reaching, unless the students are breaking the sinks off the wall in which case they need to punish the students by making them pay for the damage.
Why can't these students carry a small plastic wash trays. I've seen churches that keep a few dozen such trays for the rare foot washing service. They are about as wide, thick and long as most calculas books and are just big enough to hold one large or two small feet.
Using the excuse that it's coming out of student "fees" and it's the student's money is hypocrisy in the extreme.
A student "fee" was never actually a seperate fund otherwise the student council would have access and control over how these student "fees" are spent and not the campus administrators.
Student "fees" being the students is a accounting fiction designed to make the administration of a university feel good about themselves as they use the money to support thier pet projects in the name of the students.
Using the Students "fees" really makes me cringe and sets off resentful memories against my own university administration and the large amounts of "Fees" collected and then spent on the pet projects of Football and Basketball.
When I was attending the local university they had a large number of extra "Fees" that were not mentioned in any advertised or posted calculation of tuition cost.
I tried for better than 10 years as a single semester a year part time student to predict these "fees" and never succeeded. I always had at least a 100 dollars above and beyond what I'd calculated from published billing calculation procedures.
At my university I remember seeing and paying often every semester a "Entertainment Fee", "Lab Building Use Fee","Maintenance fee", "Library Fee", "Museum fee" and a "Parking Fee".
These so called student "fees" were never fairly spent with upwards of 80%(Proven in a minor campus scandal that changed nothing.) was always given to the Sports department so that it "ALWAYS SHOWS A PROFIT!" in spite of the lavish spending of the basketball and Football teams.
As an example the student Parking Fees only ever seemed to add parking at the Football stadium and Gym which are just over 2 miles from the from the nearest campus class room or lab.
I suspect these foot washing stations are a pet project of administrators "grossed out" by the thought of a muslim's foot in a sink he or she might wash thier hands in.
howard melton
You cleared up my thoughts on this considerably.
Some of the university's arguments sounded almost reasonable at first glance especially when I tried seperating out my own personal biases.
Here are my views.
Personally I can't see the university giving any money for the project. Donations earmarked specifically for these foot wash stations would be fine. At my old university I believe that's how the Southern Baptist chapel and meeting building was built and is maintained.
The muslim foot in the sink not being clean seems to be an almost racist statement and is silly reasoning especially if said foot is washed 5 times a day.
A foot usually inside a shoe the majority of the time is almost certainly cleaner than a person's hands.
Don't they know hands are a major vector for the distribution of sickness? I wish students would wash thier hands 5 times a day, even if it was in a sink just used to wash his or someone elses feet.
This foot in the sink excuse is really reaching, unless the students are breaking the sinks off the wall in which case they need to punish the students by making them pay for the damage.
Why can't these students carry a small plastic wash trays. I've seen churches that keep a few dozen such trays for the rare foot washing service. They are about as wide, thick and long as most calculas books and are just big enough to hold one large or two small feet.
Using the excuse that it's coming out of student "fees" and it's the student's money is hypocrisy in the extreme.
A student "fee" was never actually a seperate fund otherwise the student council would have access and control over how these student "fees" are spent and not the campus administrators.
Student "fees" being the students is a accounting fiction designed to make the administration of a university feel good about themselves as they use the money to support thier pet projects in the name of the students.
Using the Students "fees" really makes me cringe and sets off resentful memories against my own university administration and the large amounts of "Fees" collected and then spent on the pet projects of Football and Basketball.
When I was attending the local university they had a large number of extra "Fees" that were not mentioned in any advertised or posted calculation of tuition cost.
I tried for better than 10 years as a single semester a year part time student to predict these "fees" and never succeeded. I always had at least a 100 dollars above and beyond what I'd calculated from published billing calculation procedures.
At my university I remember seeing and paying often every semester a "Entertainment Fee", "Lab Building Use Fee","Maintenance fee", "Library Fee", "Museum fee" and a "Parking Fee".
These so called student "fees" were never fairly spent with upwards of 80%(Proven in a minor campus scandal that changed nothing.) was always given to the Sports department so that it "ALWAYS SHOWS A PROFIT!" in spite of the lavish spending of the basketball and Football teams.
As an example the student Parking Fees only ever seemed to add parking at the Football stadium and Gym which are just over 2 miles from the from the nearest campus class room or lab.
I suspect these foot washing stations are a pet project of administrators "grossed out" by the thought of a muslim's foot in a sink he or she might wash thier hands in.
howard melton