ISU student athletes who fear the pending state budget cuts may jeopardize their teams’ futures turned to their student representatives for help Wednesday night.

In a unanimous vote, the senate approved a resolution stating, “In the event that the Athletic Department chooses to cut any or all non-revenue generating sports, the students of ISU will seek a proportional decrease in the amount of student activity fees directed to the ISU Athletic Department.”

Robert McGinty, junior in biology, and several other members of both the men’s and women’s swimming and diving teams addressed their concerns about possible $40 million budget cuts to the three regent universities’ budgets.

“We are hoping for the passage of a resolution to support broad-based, non-revenue athletic programs,” McGinty said. “We understand that [GSB] can’t completely fund the teams. We are just asking for some assistance.”

The ISU swim teams, which are ranked nationally and recognized for their academic achievements, said student athletes likely would leave Iowa State to compete elsewhere. The men’s team budget currently makes up about 1 percent of the total athletic budget, McGinty said.

“We could form a club team, but no other schools have club teams for us to compete against,” he said.

GSB President Ben Golding said the issue was raised about a month ago at a meeting of the University Student Fees Committee, when Athletics Director Bruce Van de Velde said the Athletic Department needed money to cut down ticket prices for football and basketball. Golding said about $1 million in student fees is allocated to the Athletic Department for non-revenue generating, Olympic-style sports, not coaches’ salaries or profit-generating programs.

“In 1996, the Athletic Department guaranteed that if student fees were raised from $9 per student, per semester to $18 per student, per semester, then programs such as these would not be cut,” Golding said. “When we threatened to pull student-fees support away from the Athletic Department, Van de Velde reacted very negatively.”

Van de Velde said the swim team is acting prematurely, because no decisions to cut athletic teams have been made.

“I think what they are reacting to are the plans that the University of Nebraska and the University of Kansas have for cuts to their swim teams,” he said. “The state budget cuts affect the entire university, so no one is immune to these kind of cuts.”

The Athletic Department is reviewing the budget to see where they will stand for next year, Van de Velde said.

Golding said the Athletic Department will have to keep in mind that any changes they make could directly impact the amount of student fees money they receive.