Hoping to increase faculty and staff access to men’s basketball season tickets, Kansas University’s Senate Executive Committee on Thursday tentatively backed a plan to distribute at least 200 tickets next year via lottery.

“I am very interested in making more tickets available to more people,” said SenEx member Mark Ezell, an associate professor of social welfare who proposed the lottery.

“What we did today starts us in that direction,” he said. “It’s a plan that increases availability but doesn’t pull the rug out from under those who believe they’ve had an implied contract that says once they got a ticket, they could keep it as long as they got their renewal in on time.”

The lottery would be open to all full-time faculty and staff, regardless of seniority. Lottery winners could purchase season tickets for two years, after which there would be another lottery.

Seniority would define the processes for assigning these ticket holders’ seats — those with the most seniority would get the better seats.

Faculty and staff with tickets prior to and including the 2000-01 season would not be subject to a lottery and may renew their tickets for as long as they choose. But when a ticket holder dies, is no longer employed by the university or chooses not to renew, his or her tickets would be placed into the lottery.

Also, those not subject to the lottery would be limited to two season tickets. Those with more than two seats would forfeit the remainder to the lottery.

Retirees would be subject to the same criteria as faculty and staff.

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Spouses of retirees, faculty or staff who die would be allowed to renew one ticket — not two. The deceased’s ticket would be made available for lottery.

Bridging a gap

The proposal represented a compromise between those wanting to protect the interests of longtime season ticket holders and those bothered by newcomers having to wait years for access to tickets.

Ezell’s plan passed on a 5-3 vote over objections to seniority not being a factor in deciding who would get the initial 200 tickets or in the subsequent lotteries.

Afterward, SenEx member Pam Houston said she misunderstood Ezell’s motion and likely would vote against it in future discussions.

“I’m very much a supporter of seniority,” said Houston, director of undergraduate services in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.

OK only tentative

The plan is not final. Another round of deliberations is tentatively set for Dec. 11.

“The decision reached today is only tentative,” Ezell said, adding that he would be uncomfortable forwarding a plan to the University Council that passed by one vote.

Issues still to be discussed:

l Whether to give ticket buyers the option of buying half- or quarter-season tickets.

l How to limit faculty and staff married to each other to two tickets if nonmarried faculty and staff are each eligible to two tickets.

Ticket count upped

Last week, SenEx chairman Ray Davis announced that KU athletic director Lew Perkins had offered to set aside an additional 219 tickets for faculty and staff, increasing the allocation from 1,427 tickets to 1,646 tickets. SenEx accepted the offer.

Since then, an athletic department audit found that an additional 195 faculty and staff have season tickets and were not part of the initial count. So instead of the faculty and staff starting out with 1,427 tickets, they now hold 1,622 tickets.

Davis said Perkins agreed to set aside another 200 season tickets for faculty and staff — raising the total to 1,822.

“Not only did he give us an additional 200 seats, he said he would accommodate additional demand as long as it was not excessive,” Davis said.

Davis praised Perkins’ dealings with the faculty and staff.

“The discussions we’ve had with him have been friendly, congenial and forthcoming,” Davis said. “I have nothing but the highest respect for the way he has entered into these negotiations.”

Perkins’ initial offer included moving more than 900 faculty and staff out of seats in the third tier of Allen Fieldhouse and into second-tier seats. That understanding still stands, Davis said, but the additional 200 seats will be in the third tier.

“It’s our understanding that most of those seats are going to be in the first two or three rows of the third tier,” Davis said, “so it won’t be that much different from the second tier.”