FIU Plans to Plow Over Nature Preserve to Build New Football Fields
Joshua Muñoz-Jiménez, the preserve’s organic garden manager, quickly began organizing against the plan. He created a petition, "Preserve Our FIU! #SaveItDontPaveIt," which has received more than 7,000 signatures from faculty, staff, students, and alumni. And he is circulating dozens of publicly available documents that lay out detailed plans for the new fields. The next discussion of the plan will occur March 8. "We want an actual plan that answers the overwhelming response/concern of students and faculty," Muñoz-Jiménez says.
Rosenberg has pushed back, arguing in his email to students that the university is committed to the environment but has been struggling for more than a decade to find adequate space for athletic fields for a growing student body. In the March 2 email — subject: "Building for the Future" — he wrote that the lack of fields puts FIU “at a competitive disadvantage in [the] conference.”
