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(04/23/13 2:44am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>IU has saved nearly $20 million with an open source financial system by joining with other universities to reduce administrative costs, according to a recent press release. Open source software is free to use, distribute and modify, which in this case allowed IU to avoid the costs of licensing commercial systems that often cost much to buy and install.“These major savings are a result of Indiana University identifying and pursuing opportunities, designed specifically for the precise needs of higher education, that have enabled us to manage our administrative functions more effectively, efficiently and at a lower cost,” IU President Michael McRobbie said. In February, IU implemented the Kuali Financial System. This system allows IU faculty and administration to go to one common place to monitor and approve purchases, research grants, human resources transactions, compliance and other administrative tasks. Because of this streamlining, IU will approve and act on more than 3 million electronic documents this year, according to the press release. “The Kuali Financial System is just another example of IU’s continued mission to be on the leading edge of using technology to streamline functional operations,” MaryFrances McCourt, interim vice president and chief financial officer at IU, said in the release. Fifteen colleges and universities are expected to switch to the Kuali Financial System by the end of 2013, including Cornell University, Michigan State University, University of Hawaii, University of Arizona and University of California, Irvine.— Hannah Smith
(04/12/13 4:16am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Entering through side doors of Franklin Hall to avoid a crowd of IU on Strike participants, the Board of Trustees gathered Thursday afternoon to complete one of the shortest meetings of the year.Unlike last year’s April meeting in Bloomington, there were no disruptions during the three committee reports and business meeting that approved all action items on the agenda.Interim Vice President and Chief Financial Officer MaryFrances McCourt led the finance and audit committee, focusing on improving student affordability and cost of living in Bloomington.“There are so many different facets to the affordability issue, we thought it would be important to understand a deeper level that goes into these metrics,” said Todd Schmitz, executive director of university institutional reporting and research.The committee presented a graph that compared student “net price” between large research universities. The net price of IU, a calculation that determines the average tuition a student pays after financial aid, was relatively smaller than most of the other universities on the chart. While the board was pleased with the results, they encouraged McCourt and her team to gather a peer-comparison of debt per student to see how IU matches up.“I’m positive that if you only look comparably, you kid yourself,” Trustee Thomas Reilly said, warning the committee to look beyond comparisons. “It’s better to be the best, but you don’t want to be the best of a group that isn’t doing well.”McCourt also cited the financial literacy program MoneySmarts, which incoming students will be required to take next fall at all IU campuses. The program is part of the IU College Affordability initiative.“There is no university that is doing this with the numbers that we are doing it,” McCourt said.The Facilities Committee, led by the vice president for capital planning and facilities, updated the board on a number of Bloomington construction projects on track to be completed by their set date, including Forest Dining Hall, Indiana Memorial Union Alumni Hall and Jacobs School of Music studio building.Chair of the Board of Trustees Bill Cast noted that the University preferred to fund new buildings through endowments and use University money to renovate and refurbish buildings that already existed. The new Jacobs building and the expansion to Kelley School of Business are both funded through Lilly Endowments. The new Rose Avenue Residence Hall is funded by auxiliary revenue bonds repaid through Residential Programs and Services revenue.“With every new building comes R and R,” Cast said. “To keep our footprint smaller, we refurbish old buildings.”Morrison and his Associate Vice President John Lewis reported that phase one of the $37 million Kelley School expansion and renovation is almost complete. The final product is estimated for completion by August 2014. The committee also noted the Bloomington campus has seen a 43 percent reduction in carbon emissions in the past year due to the University’s switch from coal to natural gas.The academic affairs committee meeting was brief, with Vice President John Applegate reporting on IU cyber security and a motion to officially honor fallen IUPD Police Chief Keith Cash.During the faculty report, Bloomington Faculty Council President Carolyn Calloway emphasized the importance of the state legislature staying out of affairs directly related with faculty and staff decisions.The board agreed.“Academia and curriculum are kept best in the hands of our faculty, and there are boundaries that legislatures can not cross,” Trustee Patrick Shoulders said.During the relatively brief business meeting at the end of the day, a small number of the total protesters who chanted outside Franklin hall filed into empty seats while the remaining crowd moved to Woodburn Hall.The audience remained quiet while the board passed all action items including renovations for Phi Kappa Psi Fraternity, road improvements on 17th Street and Jordan Avenue, a Wells Library sprinkler and infrastructure renovations.IU on Strike did not interrupt or disrupt the meeting, but Cast was critical of the group, noting many of the problems proposed by IU on Strike had already been recognized by the Trustees. Solutions to these issues in regard to the university have long been in the works, he said.“I don’t think the protest is very effective,” Cast said. “I thought the response of the provost was very appropriate. If you have ideas to protest, you should overcome with your ideas.”Above all, the trustees appreciated thoughtful and well-articulated student voice, not “shooting from the hip,” he added.The trustees occasionally receive fiery emails from students, and often, they will compile those emails and make a board-wide response to the issues. If a student sent a member of the board a thoughtful, articulate email, that member may respond, he said.“I would ask, ‘Well, what have you done so far?’ and usually the answer is ‘Nothing…I have no idea what’s going on,’” Cast said. “It helps to know if you had a skeleton or a framework to hang something on.”The journalism, telecommunications and communications and culture merger as well as discussion about parking financing were pushed to meetings later in the year. The committees only had partial data on both issues, Cast said, so the trustees decided to consider those action items at a later date.
(04/08/13 2:46am)
Mufarrah Musaeva was discussing Uzbek dating culture in her class when a student asked whether couples in Uzbekistan talk about their sex lives with friends. Before she could answer, a student told her to “keep it PG.”
(04/05/13 3:34am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Following IU President Michael McRobbie’s announcement of the IU Online Initiative last September, members of the new Office of Online Education are hosting a town hall meeting Friday for IU faculty and staff.The meeting is from 1:30-3:30 p.m. in the Georgian Room of the Indiana Memorial Union. Meeting facilitators include vice provost for strategic initiatives M.A. Venkataramanan and Office of Online Education director Barb Bichelmeyer, who will answer questions about the initiative as well as gather input and suggestions for the future of online education at IU.“It’s helpful to understand the details of the initiative and to know where the funds are coming from, where they’re being spent and what our priorities are,” Bichelmeyer said. “We’re there to answer those questions.”IU Online is part of a three-year, $8 million initiative between all IU campuses that looks to expand the role of online education at the graduate and undergraduate level, as well as explore new programs that can enhance the learning experience for students.The first objective of the program is to establish at least one online program in each graduate professional school on the Bloomington and Indianapolis campuses by the fall semester of 2014. “We realized that the changing demographics of the world makes it harder for people to drop everything and complete graduate education,” Venkataramanan, who is overseeing the initiative’s effect on the Bloomington campus, said. “My role is to make sure the Bloomington campus stays on the cutting edge. Strategically, how do we tackle this brave new world of online education?”The initiative also looks to expand key “gateway courses,” typical general education requirements that often have high waitlists or are already taken by incoming students as dual-credit or advanced placement courses.Bichelmeyer said the emphasis for the smaller regional campuses such as Northwest and South Bend is to increase undergraduate online course offerings to accommodate the higher number of part-time and commuter students. In the past two years, the number of students taking online classes has increased from 14,000 in 2010 to 20,000 last fall, Bichelmeyer said. On the Bloomington campus alone, the number has increased from 2,400 to 3,500.IU currently offers roughly 80 undergraduate, graduate and professional level online degrees.“Our students are starting to ask for online programs, but the way we do that is to create an online infrastructure that matches our on-campus infrastructure,” Bichelmeyer said. “Our strengths have always been our faculty and facilities, so we have to remain student-centered and quality-focused in our course offerings.”Along with increasing the number of online classes and degree programs, IU Online is looking into several technological innovations in online education. This includes technology created by IU-Purdue University Indianapolis professor Ali Jafari called “course networking,” which combines services available in existing programs such as Oncourse with aspects of social media sites such as Facebook.“That also helps the hybrid educational system,” Bichelmeyer said. “The lessons that we’re working on are not only for fully online programs, but for hybrid and on-campus programs as well.”While funding for IU online is shared between the office of the president, the various campuses and University Information Technology Services, the long-term cost of new online programs is still up in the air.In a 2011 report “Strategic Plan for Online Education,” requested by McRobbie, School of Informatics and Computing Dean Bobby Schnabel said IU needs to educate policy makers and the public that online education generally is more, not less, expensive than on-campus education at both undergraduate and graduate levels,” and the University should price undergraduate online education at least as high as on-campus education.“In terms of affordability, there are many questions left to identify about the cost around online courses and programs because they require a lot more sophisticated infrastructure,” Bichelmeyer said. “But over time we may see that it’s possible for a strong return on investment that would allow us to offer online programs in a more affordable way, but I think it’s too early to tell.”
(04/03/13 9:17pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>The Board of Trustees meeting originally scheduled for April 11 and 12 in Bloomington has been shortened to one day, according to an online agenda released on the trustees’ website.The bi-monthly committee and business meeting will now take place throughout the day starting at 8:30 a.m. next Thursday. Associate Vice President of Communications Mark Land said the change was because the agenda is small and does not require two days of meetings.“The board is comprised of a number of committees, and a couple of them have no activity at this time,” Land said. “It’s a simple matter. Why make everyone stay the extra night if we can do it in one day and be finished.”Only three committees, Finance and Audit, Facilities and Academic Affairs and University Policies, will meet.Land said the board will not hear tuition recommendations, just one of the topics originally scheduled for the April meeting that have now been omitted.A strike was planned for both April 11 and 12 to coincide with the trustees’ meetings. Tucker Lang, an undergraduate representative from IU on Strike, the group organizing the action, said the strike will still take place both days.Land affirmed the date change had nothing to do with the strike plans.“It was simply a matter that there wasn’t enough on the agenda to spread it over two days,” Land said. “We’ll still accommodate people who want to listen to the pre-meeting. We have to post everything anyway we so we weren’t trying to sneak anything by anyone.”The meeting, open to the public except for an executive session, will begin at 8:30 a.m. in the President’s room in Franklin Hall.The Board of Trustees Business meeting will begin at 3:15 p.m., where IU President Michael McRobbie will address the trustees.— Joe Weber
(03/29/13 5:25am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Due to decreased state funding for renovation and rehabilitation projects on Bloomington and other IU campuses, the University is currently facing roughly $700 million deferred maintenance for academic facilities. That number, including renovation and construction costs for campus auxiliary buildings such as residence halls and athletic facilities, adds to about $1 billion in total deferred maintenance costs for all of IU.“It’s money that we have not spent, but that we need to spend in the next decade in terms of major renovations,” said Tom Morrison, vice president for capital planning and facilities. “Our challenge is to find how we can finance that over time and not create a fiscal liability for our institutions.”Renovation and rehabilitation funding, commonly referred to as R&R, includes any maintenance, repair, renovation or construction on IU academic, administration and research facilities — whether it be a new lab in Swain Hall, a repaired roof on a library or a renovated classroom.“The problem is that it’s a ‘pay me now or pay me later’ problem,” Morrison said. “If the roof on your house needs to be replaced, you try to replace it now. If you don’t have the money to do that, when the roof actually leaks, it’s going to be a lot worse. It’s the same thing with University R&R projects, just add zeroes on the cost.”In the past 10 years, state funding for R&R projects gradually decreased unAtil all allocated funding was completely eliminated starting in fall 2011.Following the cut, the Board of Trustees approved and implemented a temporary R&R student mandatory fee of $180 per Bloomington student, which is still in effect. Student mandatory fees include health, activity and technology fees that students pay each semester. As major projects such as restoration of historic buildings in the Old Crescent have become a priority on the Bloomington campus by IU President Michael McRobbie, Morrison said finding ways to fund these projects has been a major challenge.The Bloomington campus alone spends roughly $25 million per year on renovation and rehabilitation projects. Of the $700 million being deferred, Bloomington accounts for roughly $480 million. “The problem is we should be spending about twice that number on an annual basis,” Morrison said.The value of academic buildings in Bloomington is about $4 billion. Morrison said the University should be spending at the very least 1 percent of that total on R&R, which would equal $40 million per year.“We’ve figured out how to have a band-aid approach, but we’re not really healing the wound,” Morrison said. “What we want is when you go into a class, you’re not thinking about the building around you. How that happens is that we need to invest in these systems.”Still, he said, there is hope for renewed state funding. The current Indiana state budget for fiscal years 2014 and 2015 recently passed by the House of Representatives includes revived funding for R&R projects. But with the Senate still left to approve of the bill, the question of whether state funding will return is up in the air.“We hope there’s a good end to the story,” Morrison said. “There seems to be a renewed interest in protecting the value of the buildings. We’re grateful that the House of Representatives made that investment.”Whether students will still pay a mandatory fee for R&R, is not known. It will be determined this summer when the Board of Trustees approves the final budget.The specifics of where and when these deferred maintenance projects are completed is still unclear, Morrison said. The only inevitable factor is that major renovations — such as restoration of Franklin Hall, new labs in Swain Hall and a series of projects at Wells Library — need to be accomplished, eventually.“We’ve got to figure out how we can finance them overtime,” Morrison said. “It doesn’t exist today, but the good thing is if you can spend an appropriation every year, you’re chipping away at it. You’re flowing in the right direction.”
(03/28/13 7:32pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Due to decreased state funding for renovation and rehabilitation projects on Bloomington and other IU campuses, the University is currently facing roughly $700 million deferred maintenance for academic facilities. That number, including renovation and construction costs for campus auxiliary buildings such as residence halls and athletic facilities, adds to about $1 billion in total deferred maintenance costs for all of IU.“It’s money that we have not spent, but that we need to spend in the next decade in terms of major renovations,” said Tom Morrison, vice president for capital planning and facilities. “Our challenge is to find how we can finance that over time and not create a fiscal liability for our institutions.”Renovation and rehabilitation funding, commonly referred to as R&R, includes any maintenance, repair, renovation or construction on IU academic, administration and research facilities — whether it be a new lab in Swain Hall, a repaired roof on a library or a renovated classroom.“The problem is that it’s a ‘pay me now or pay me later’ problem,” Morrison said. “If the roof on your house needs to be replaced, you try to replace it now. If you don’t have the money to do that, when the roof actually leaks, it’s going to be a lot worse. It’s the same thing with University R&R projects, just add zeroes on the cost.”In the past 10 years, state funding for R&R projects gradually decreased until all allocated funding was completely eliminated starting in fall 2011.Following the cut, the Board of Trustees approved and implemented a temporary R&R student mandatory fee of $180 per Bloomington student, which is still in effect. Student mandatory fees include health, activity and technology fees that students pay each semester. As major projects such as restoration of historic buildings in the Old Crescent have become a priority on the Bloomington campus by IU President Michael McRobbie, Morrison said finding ways to fund these projects has been a major challenge.The Bloomington campus alone spends roughly $25 million per year on renovation and rehabilitation projects. Of the $700 million being deferred, Bloomington accounts for roughly $480 million. “The problem is we should be spending about twice that number on an annual basis,” Morrison said.The value of academic buildings in Bloomington is about $4 billion. Morrison said the University should be spending at the very least 1 percent of that total on R&R, which would equal $40 million per year.“We’ve figured out how to have a band-aid approach, but we’re not really healing the wound,” Morrison said. “What we want is when you go into a class, you’re not thinking about the building around you. How that happens is that we need to invest in these systems.”Still, he said, there is hope for renewed state funding. The current Indiana state budget for fiscal years 2014 and 2015 recently passed by the House of Representatives includes revived funding for R&R projects. But with the Senate still left to approve of the bill, the question of whether state funding will return is up in the air.“We hope there’s a good end to the story,” Morrison said. “There seems to be a renewed interest in protecting the value of the buildings. We’re grateful that the House of Representatives made that investment.”Whether students will still pay a mandatory fee for R&R, is not known. It will be determined this summer when the Board of Trustees approves the final budget.The specifics of where and when these deferred maintenance projects are completed is still unclear, Morrison said. The only inevitable factor is that major renovations — such as restoration of Franklin Hall, new labs in Swain Hall and a series of projects at Wells Library — need to be accomplished, eventually.“We’ve got to figure out how we can finance them overtime,” Morrison said. “It doesn’t exist today, but the good thing is if you can spend an appropriation every year, you’re chipping away at it. You’re flowing in the right direction.”
(03/26/13 3:54am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Professor Benjamin Robinson lectures about famous political uprisings on a regular basis in the classroom. It was only last week that he had to face the effects of one close to home.Last week, Executive Dean of College of Arts and Sciences Larry Singell sent an email to all instructors in the college reminding them of a policy that prohibits the use of “faculty LISTSERVs and emails to promote organization around the proposed student strike.”Robinson said that when he received the email, he immediately thought it was a misinterpretation of the policy. “The consequences of a misinterpretation are chilling effect on free speech and academic freedom,” Robinson said.Despite the warnings of the dean, Robinson and other members of faculty are in support of the strike. Recent cuts in state funding have affected not only IU students, but faculty and staff. Activist group IU on Strike is encouraging disgruntled IU employees to join in the strikes planned for April 11 and 12. Robinson said he believes that students and faculty are both facing the same major issue.“We’re losing our commitment to the franchise of public education in the country for all citizens,” Robinson said. He also said that cutting budgets on public education downgrades the value of teachers and quality of learning. As the IU strike becomes more prevalent, speculation as to what would happen to staff if they participated in the strike has quietly circulated campus.“Unless employees are on paid time off, the University would not consider it appropriate behavior to engage in activities on work time that are disruptive to campus operations,” said Mark Land, associate vice president of IU Communications. “This also would apply to employees represented by a union.”As a tenured professor, Robinson is officially allowed the right to participate in and support the strike without fear of termination. However, he said he felt the email from the dean appeared as if it were trying to stifle support.Professor Micol Seigel agreed with Robinson, adding that the email was vague.“To say that you can’t use email is to say that you can’t speak,” Seigel said.In response, Robinson and some of his colleagues sent an open letter to the University Counsel correcting the interpretation of the policy and addressing the implications of the email. The letter was signed by 46 professors, including Seigel and Robinson.“We’re going to insist on the proper interpretation and keep using the IT system,” Robinson said. “If we are consecrated to the idea of academic freedom, we better stand up, so that’s the passion behind the letter.”Although faculty are officially allowed to support the strike, Seigel said they could be punished in other, more passive ways.“Faculty fear reprisal from the administration for supporting the strikes,” Seigel said. She explained that one of the dean’s stated criteria for allocating resources to a department is harmony — a given faculty member’s participation in the strike could be construed as dissent and a reason to limit the resources granted his or her department.“I understand that has deterred some people who are chairs of their department from participating,” Seigel said.Graduate student instructors, unprotected by tenure, could have also been deterred from participation in the strike. “I think it’s possible that non-tenured track faculty could get in trouble, and that’s something that we’re really worried about, and it would be wonderful to get a clarification from the administration about if it’s prohibited,” Seigel said.Robinson said the number of classes being taught by graduate students and non-tenure eligible faculty has gone up enormously in the past few years due to budget cuts. “The bulk of the work of the University have been done by people with no job security and with low pay,” Robinson said.However, he said many graduate student instructors are reluctant to participate in the strike.“As aspiring professionals, they don’t want to jeopardize their positions, and they want to become professors,” Robinson said.Land said the University is working hard to keep costs down by operating as efficiently as possible while still remaining fair.“The fact is that running a large university campus is an extremely complex endeavor, and it is impossible to make everyone happy with every decision,” Land said.At the very least, Seigel and Robinson both said the strike will bring the community together to talk about issues that need discussion.“The fact is that if each generation doesn’t commit itself to public education, its significance will be lost, and I think it’s beautiful that they’re trying to make good on that commitment,” Robinson said.
(03/26/13 3:41am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>A year ago, 21-year-old Lexi Prahl still had a plan. She even had a way to pay for it.“When I was little, my mom worked in the Navy,” Prahl said. “She passed away when I was young. Ever since then I’ve been getting money from the government that my dad has been saving to pay for college.”After taking classes through the IU Air Force ROTC program starting her sophomore year, she planned on attending basic training and eventually earning an officer position in the U.S. military, just like her mom. But when the Air Force informed her she was medically postponed and could not complete training, the Washington, D.C., native made a decision: stay an extra year in college to complete a degree and continue her dream, even as her savings passed down through her mother ran out.“It was a huge blow to realize that my life plan couldn’t be possible, but instead of being really sad about it, I knew I had to do something so I didn’t fall behind,” Prahl said.Approaching her senior year, she decided to pursue a management degree through the School of Public and Environmental Affairs, along with a minor in international studies. In order to complete her degree, she will be attending IU for a fifth year. Though the most updated statistics report a 58-percent on-time graduation rate for the IU-Bloomington campus for students seeking a four-year degree, IU administration is putting on-time graduation as a top priority. “We’ve got a responsibility to help provide students with the tools to graduate,” said Mark Land, vice president of IU communications. “If you stay another year, not only are you paying tuition, you’re paying for books, room and board and possibly adding debt.”IU President Michael McRobbie addressed on-time graduation rates in a recent University-wide email, stating “IU is committed to providing tools and incentives to our students that will help them earn their degree in four years or less and lower the cost of attending IU, and thereby reducing their overall debt load.”As McRobbie’s recommendation for tuition rates to the Board of Trustees approaches, the president highlighted initiatives implemented by the University to not only increase on-time graduation rates but also improve student financial literacy.First mentioned in the State of the Campus Address, McRobbie cited the new “Finish in Four” program to be implemented this fall. Through the program, juniors and seniors from all seven IU campuses will receive a financial award that offsets any increase in tuition that occurred during their last two years at IU.Because the program is still in its infancy, rising juniors with at least 60 completed credit hours and rising seniors with at least 90 hours will qualify for the award.“I wouldn’t have minded staying another year when I was here, but it can really be a burden financially on students,” said Land, an IU-Bloomington graduate. “We’re not a for-profit business. We don’t have interest in generating fees just to generate fees.”In order to catch up on credit hours, Prahl utilized the University’s new summer session tuition discount.“I felt like I needed to be productive, and since they were discounted, it was really helpful,” Prahl said. “It made sense to stay here and take the cheaper classes.”Since Prahl changed paths so late in her college career, she said she does not blame unnecessary credit requirements as a reason for her extra year in school.However, following demands from recently passed Indiana House Enrolled Act 1220, the University reduced credit requirements for all but a few baccalaureate and associate degrees.More than 90 percent of all bachelor’s degree programs at IU will meet the 120-credit requirement recommended by the state by next year.“This was no small undertaking,” Land said. “We have over 400 degree programs that we had to review and reduce in very quick order. The state legislature is really pushing Universities to push students through in four years as a way to control their costs.”By using the last of the savings collected from the U.S. Department of Veteran’s Affairs, along with liquidated stock earnings Prahl’s mom purchased before her death, she said she will still be able to pay out-of-state tuition. Despite incentives to graduate in four years and avoid student debt, she said that in the end, the most important thing is making it to the finish. “It can be hard,” Prahl said. “You have to make sacrifices, but I believe the most important thing is to finish college and get your degree. Any way you can do that, you should do it.”
(03/25/13 3:35am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Alumni of the School of Journalism are officially weighing in on the proposed merger of their alma mater.In a recent letter drafted and approved 27-0, the members of the Journalism Alumni Board expressed a number of “deep concerns,” namely about one element of the merger proposal — the idea to move the new merged unit into the College of Arts and Sciences.In addition to alumni, the resolution has been shared with the Board of Trustees, University President Michael McRobbie and Provost Lauren Robel.President of the Alumni Board JR Ross said the purpose of the letter is to voice concern, but final judgment will be withheld until more detailed plans are released.“We want to be critical of things, as we were trained to do, and make sure (questions are) answered in a way to ensure people that journalism will continue to not just survive but thrive for decades to come,” Ross said.The resolution said the current proposal ends the School of Journalism’s independence, thus hurting its reputation as an award-garnering, nationally recognized school, lessening enrollment and donor support.Also in the resolution, Ross noted alumni concern about financial independence of journalism, which, under COAS, would likely lose financial resources to other COAS departments, as opposed to the financial independence the school has presently.Ease of administrative decision-making is another point of concern. New housing in COAS could potentially add bureaucratic layers that would hinder decision-making and inhibit flexibility, the resolution read.“We still have questions, and I think it’s appropriate,” Ross said. “We can still raise questions about COAS governance structure and question in the best way possible. We’re in a much better position than the faculty are. There’s a position among alumni that if faculty make a ruckus against the COAS, they would be hurt by that and lose the ability to argue for journalism.”Among the signers are Marjorie Smith Blewett, BA’48 a retired placement director at IU; Ben French, BAJ’98, director of web products at The New York Times; James Polk, BA’64, senior documentary producer at CNN and Carrie Ritchie, BAJ’08, reporter at The Indianapolis Star.The resolution does note alumni will reassess the proposal as more details are worked out before the Board of Trustees votes on the proposal. The Board will meet in April on the Bloomington campus, though a vote likely isn’t expected at the earliest until the Board meets in June at IU-Purdue Fort Wayne.“We’re at least happy to see it won’t be happening (in April),” Ross said. “Generally speaking, it would be better if it would be done in the fall when students are on campus and more people are more engaged, but I can’t control that stuff.”The formal response resolution comes as the next steps in the merger proposal begin to take shape. As outlined in a discussion between the provost and COAS and journalism administrators on March 4, Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences Larry Singell and Interim Dean Michael Evans — the only two deans in the mix — will co-author a Memorandum of Understanding for submission to Robel.Evans asked his faculty and staff to contribute to the memorandum “anything that we feel would be essential for the preservation and enhancement of our program and our national stature.”Singell said he is still working on a proposal for the administrative structure of the new school, which will be included in the document, and that any plans or recommendations laid out in the memorandum will need to be approved by the provost. “The Memorandum of Understanding needs to have a clear understanding of how this operation would exist in the College, so I need to be able to determine that,” Singell said. “We need to work out the details and how (the merged school’s administration) will interact in the context of the College.”Singell said the heads of the telecommunications and communication and culture departments won’t co-write the document, as the point of the letter is to help sort out questions regarding the School of Journalism’s potential new placement in COAS, where the two departments already reside.Evans said he and Singell should have the letter finished sometime before early April, after which he, Singell and Robel will meet to discuss the document and future direction.“I don’t think anyone is interested in imposing their will on anybody else, because that’s not the way to get a good, harmonious group together,” Evans said. “I’m sure Dean Singell has ideas about how he would like to see the administrative structure, as we do, too, and that will come out through open dialogue.”Another outcome of the March 4 meeting was the creation of a Franklin Hall Space Planning Committee, which will evaluate the building and assess its ability to deliver on the needs of all three units. It was recommended by Robel in her Feb. 19 State of the Campus address as the optimal space for the new school. All three units will participate in the committee, which is still being formed. Evans said a number of people have already contacted him and are interested to serve.The committee will determine what each unit needs to make the school a leader in communications, Evans said, including not only classrooms and offices, but production studios and student media space as well.“The opportunity of Franklin Hall is deeply exciting,” Evans said. “That, to me, is one of the most exciting pieces of this whole thing.”
(03/20/13 2:16am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>The IU School of Public Health has added a new appendix to its school. The Office of Global and Community Health Partnerships is a resource for creating community engagement, according to a press release. It will be a resource for students and community members and will seek to increase the community engagement of the school through partnerships so there is more of an effect on health care.“The office manages all partnerships,” said Erin Cooperman, executive director of the office. “The partnerships help bolster the public health care workforce.”The partnerships will do more than just provide reinforcement to the public health care force. Cooperman also said they help students continue their education, place interns with corporations, help the community and work with community coalitions. The partnerships work with a wide variety of social groups. “Our office is mainly concerned with workforce development,” Cooperman said. “We work with the Indiana State Department of Health, mainly, as well as the Bedford Domestic Violence Coalition, which helps to reduce domestic violence in Bedford.”Other partnerships include the IU-Purdue University Indianapolis public health training center and AmeriCorps’ active living coalition. The school works closely with the committees and supports many coalitions, Cooperman said. Partnerships with the community have been an ongoing project since the school first started out. The difference with the global and community health partnerships is that they’re very new, so the faculty involved are working on structuring the program, Cooperman said. These partnerships begin in one of two ways.“They can come to us, asking for help, then we take it to the University,” Cooperman said. “The other way it can be done is the faculty asks them. We primarily make the connections, though.”The school also has some partnerships abroad.“We also have partnerships with Cairo University, Seoul National University and Beijing Sport University,” Cooperman said. “We try to partner with universities that are studying the same things we are, so obesity for example. A lot of countries are having problems with obesity.”The connections the office makes are of great importance to the school, Cooperman said.“It’s important that the University interacts with the community,” Cooperman said. “We need the community partners to see how people take care of their health. We can’t understand health without community partners.”
(03/01/13 5:29am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>There’s no clear consensus with faculty and administration in the telecommunications and communication and culture departments following Provost Lauren Robel’s Feb. 19 announcement regarding their departments’ merger with the School of Journalism. Telecommunications department chair Walter Gantz and interim chair of communication and culture Barbara Klinger both agreed the proposal to house the merged communication unit within the College of Arts and Sciences would be a smart move to increase coordination between units. They also echoed each other’s statements, saying their faculty appreciates the liberal arts tradition of COAS and enjoy their current residence within the College. Gantz said there haven’t been formal discussions about the merger among his staff to help shape a new proposal. He is still waiting for direction from upper administration. “My sense is that the report that had been delivered to the provost was a starting point, but that we don’t really have the architecture or scaffolding in place yet to build this combined edifice,” Gantz said. “I expect we’re going to learn more soon and that there’ll be ample time for faculty to construct what this new school is going to look like.” Robel noted last week that “the ball is back in the faculty’s court,” and that faculty from all three units would need to work together to develop a new proposal for her to consider. This would need to happen before submitting a finalized proposal to the Board of Trustees — which meets on campus April 11-12 — and President Michael McRobbie. Amy Cornell, an undergraduate adviser and assistant to the chair of the Department of Communication and Culture, hasn’t heard from her students about the subject. Nor has she heard from administrative superiors on a future meeting of department leaders to discuss its future, as suggested by Robel. Though her students haven’t been very vocal on the merger, she said she believes it will offer future students new opportunities in the form of new majors and courses.“We’ll be able to talk about media and communication in new ways by bringing together these three areas that look at things differently but have overlapping interests,” Cornell said. “The devil is always in the details.” Mark Deuze, associate professor in the Department of Telecommunications, spent his first year at IU as a visiting professor in the School of Journalism and CMCL, and later moved to telecommunications. He isn’t pleased with the progression of the merger proposal, he said. Media and communication at IU is not limited to just three areas, he said, and trying to force the three areas into a single unit is a missed opportunity for true innovation. “I’m asking the University higher-ups ‘what is it that you’re not getting?’ Nothing ever gets solved by adding another bureaucratic layer on top. That’s just not how things work,” Deuze said. “To be very honest, the way it looks like now, it makes it look like we’re going backwards and not forwards.”In academics, red tape currently prevents journalism students from getting a second major in telecommunications. Telecommunications majors cannot earn a major or certificate in journalism. Senior Kylee Wierks, a telecommunications and political science major, is also a reporter and anchor for IU Student Television. She’s taken enough classes in the journalism school to get a certificate in journalism but cannot due to the credit restriction. Wierks was a journalism major throughout her freshman year. First semester sophomore year she switched to telecommunications after getting nervous about the future of print journalism, she said. Still, she estimates she’s taken as many telecommunications as journalism courses. That said, the School of Journalism offers just two broadcast courses to undergraduates. “My ultimate goal is to be a broadcast journalist, so I decided I needed the reporting and writing skills that I would get at the journalism school that I couldn’t get at the T-comm (telecommunications) school, because as far as television production goes at the T-comm school, they mainly do the production aspect of it.”Cornell acknowledged details are scant, but from informal talks with her colleagues, she said faculty mood in the department is one of tempered optimism, given the proposal’s recommendation to keep CMCL in COAS. “Had it gone the other way, I guarantee you my faculty would have been upset about leaving the college,” she said. Thought the current proposal calls for the two departments to remain in the College, the new unit is tentatively scheduled to be housed in Franklin Hall, near the Sample Gates, forcing the Department of Telecommunications out of the Radio-Television Center, located between the School of Fine Arts and the Herman B Wells Library. Though the Radio-Television Center was built decades ago, a $7.5 million, 19,000 square feet addition was added in 1997, which included the remodeling of the older building. Gantz said he isn’t sure if production, administrative and academic space from all three units will fit in Franklin Hall. He noted the current, relatively new studios in the Radio-Television Center would be both difficult and expensive to move to Franklin Hall. “Our TV studio is wonderful and large and can’t easily be uprooted,” he said. “We also know that journalism would like a studio for news production. As we move toward incorporating more film, we’ll need facilities for that and post-production work.”Sharing space with telecommunications academic space is IU Radio and Television Services, which includes WTIU Public Television, WFIU Public Radio and IUSTV. “The boundary is porous,” Gantz said. “We have students who work for RTV Services. We have production professionals who teach some of our classes.”He expressed concern about the loss of that relationship if the move to Franklin Hall were to be approved. “At least for telecommunications, Franklin Hall isn’t the ideal location,” Gantz said. The new proposed school does hold promise, however, for IUSTV. Current studio space in Read Center isn’t the most spacious or up-to-date, Wierks said. IUSTV, as well as WTIU, have been crucial to her professional development at IU, she added. “If I hadn’t done IUSTV or interned at WTIU over at the T-comm school, I wouldn’t have any broadcast experiences at all,” Wierks said. “We learn how to put packages together in class, but that’s about it. You don’t really learn about news setup works at all in these classes. You really have to seek outside of school organizations like IUSTV in order to get that experience.” Despite the potential upsides of reducing academic course friction and increased student media connectivity, Dueze said collaboration must give rise to a school, not the other way around. “It’s well intended,” Deuze said. “I’m all for doing more things together and getting out of the cocoon that telecommunications is ... but I don’t think new school will facilitate this. Maybe in the long term, but the way it has been managed at this time, I don’t see it happening. It’s just sad. Something better could have been made out of this.”
(03/01/13 4:43am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Pending Board of Trustees approval, current California State University Monterey Bay Provost Kathryn Cruz-Uribe will assume chancellorship at IU-East Richmond, University President Michael McRobbie announced Thursday.The chancellor is the lead administrator at IU-East.Cruz-Uribe will succeed Nasser Paydar, who left IU-East to become the executive vice chancellor of IU-Purdue University Indianapolis.In addition to her duties at California State University Monterey Bay, Cruz-Urbine served at Northern Arizona University from 1989 to 2007, according to a press release.“I look forward to the opportunity to lead the continued development of the region’s campus of choice for four-year and master’s education, and to collaborate with colleagues throughout the state as we work to improve educational attainment in the state of Indiana,” Cruz-Uribe said in the release.— Kirsten Clark
(02/27/13 4:48am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>The IU School of Medicine is currently in the process of choosing a new dean, and the selection committee is down to the final six candidates.Finalists began on-campus interviews last week in Indianapolis, according to a press release. The new dean and vice president for university clinical affairs will succeed Dr. D. Craig Brater, who is retiring in June after 27 years with the school. Brater has been the dean since July 2000.The chair of the search committee, IU School of Dentistry Dean John Williams, said the search began in September with the help of an academic search firm.“We developed a job description, then broadly advertised the position in academic journals,” Williams said. “There was a wide invitation. Then applicants could apply, and the search committee looked over resumes and chose pools of people they wanted to talk to.”After the resumes were looked through, the top candidates were narrowed down and invited to off-campus interviews, Williams said. Then the applicants were narrowed down to six, and their on-campus interviews will span the next few weeks. Once on campus, Williams said the process of interviews will be intensive.“The interviews will be two days long,” Williams said. “The applicants will meet with faculty, grad students and leadership of the IU Medical Centers. Then I will take the information and identify an even more reduced list that will go to [IU President Michael] McRobbie and the chancellor.”The search committee hopes to have made a final choice on the new vice president and dean by this spring.“It’s hard to know when the final decision will be made, because it all comes down to McRobbie and the chancellor,” Williams said.The committee’s goal of choosing a new dean is to keep up with everything the School of Medicine has been doing in recent years. “There are many dynamic changes facing medicine,” Williams said. “The leadership is very important. We want to keep momentum going, contribute to medical research and education and care.”— Laura SchulteFinalistsDavid Williams, M.D.Chief, Division of Hematology/Oncology, and director of translational research at Boston Children’s Hospital; associate chairman, Department of Pediatric Oncology at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Leland Fikes Professor of Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School.David Wilkes, M.D.Executive associate dean for research affairs; August M. Watanabe Professor of Medical Research and director of the Center for Immunobiology at IU School of Medicine and assistant vice president for research at IU.Anantha Shekhar, M.D., Ph.D.Associate dean for translational research and Raymond E. Houk Professor of Psychiatry at IU School of Medicine; director of the Indiana Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute and assistant vice president for research at IU.Jay Hess, M.D., Ph.D.Carl V. Weller Professor and Chair, Department of Pathology, and professor of internal medicine at University of Michigan Medical School and director of clinical laboratories and director of the Division of Sponsored Research, Department of Pathology at University of Michigan Health System.Stephen Strakowski, M.D. Senior associate dean for research, Dr. Stanley and Mickey Kaplan Professor and chairman of psychiatry, and professor of psychology and biomedical engineering, University of Cincinnati College of Medicine and vice president of research at UC Health.William Tierney, M.D. Associate dean for clinical effectiveness research; Chancellor’s Professor and Sam Regenstrief Professor of Health Services Research at IU School of Medicine and president and CEO of Regenstrief Institute Inc.
(02/26/13 10:12pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>The IU School of Medicine is currently in the process of choosing a new dean, and the selection committee has narrowed it down to the final six.Finalists began on-campus interviews last week in Indianapolis, according to a press release. The new dean and vice president for university clinical affairs will succeed Dr. D. Craig Brater, who is retiring in June after 27 years with the school. Brater has been the dean since July 2000.The chair of the search committee, IU School of Dentistry Dean John Williams, said the search began in September with the help of an academic search firm.“We developed a job description, then broadly advertised the position in academic journals,” Williams said. “There was a wide invitation. Then applicants could apply, and the search committee looked over résumés and chose pools of people they wanted to talk to.”After the résumés were looked through, the top candidates were narrowed down and invited to off-campus interviews, Williams said. Then the applicants were narrowed down to six, and their on-campus interviews will span the next few weeks. Once on campus, Williams said the process of interviews will be intensive.“The interviews will be two days long,” Williams said. “The applicants will meet with faculty, grad students and leadership of the IU Medical Centers. Then I will take the information and identify an even more reduced list that will go to [IU President Michael] McRobbie and the chancellor.”The search committee hopes to have made a final choice on the new vice president and dean by this spring.“It’s hard to know when the final decision will be made, because it all comes down to McRobbie and the chancellor,” Williams said.The committee’s goal of choosing a new dean is to keep up with everything the School of Medicine has been doing in recent years. “There are many dynamic changes facing medicine,” Williams said. “The leadership is very important. We want to keep momentum going, contribute to medical research and education and care.”
(02/26/13 4:15am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>As interim provost, now-President Michael McRobbie made increasing diversity at IU-Bloomington a campus-wide goal in 2007. Last week, Provost and Executive Vice President Lauren Robel said in her State of the Campus address that the percentage of minority faculty has grown to 31 percent.However, minorities comprise 18.6 percent of the Bloomington faculty, according to the IU Fact Book.“That was a prepositional error,” said Elisabeth Andrews, communications specialist in the Office of the Provost. “It should have been ‘by,’ not ‘to.’”The numbers only reflect tenured and tenure-track faculty members who work full-time and who decide to answer questions pertaining to race and ethnicity when prompted by software such as OneStart, Schmitz said.Jean Robinson, executive associate dean in the College of Arts and Sciences, said the issues of student body diversity and faculty diversity go hand in hand, because in order to get the students, you have to have the faculty.“I think the importance of having a diverse faculty on staff is so that students can say, ‘Hey, there are people like me in these fields,’” said Pamela Bilo, co-president of Women in Computing’s graduate group. “Computer science is overwhelmingly male, and a lot of times there is a guy culture that is around computer science. If you see that there are only men in computer science, then you may think that it’s not for you.”However, diversity doesn’t just mean race, ethnicity or gender. It could also be how professors approach the subjects they are teaching and their diverse opinions on their topics, Robinson said.“This year, in collaboration with Vice President Ed Marshall and Affirmative Action Officer Julie Knost, I have charged the deans to look carefully at all the areas of their programs with the diversity of the faculty in mind and have revamped the strategic hiring initiative,” Robel said at the State of the Campus address.According to Robinson, the College of Arts and Sciences has several measures already in place.“When a department is hiring for a new position they have to ask permission from us to interview the three people, and if on the face it seems like it’s not diverse, I ask questions,” Robinson said. “And the Office of Affirmative Action knows the gender and ethnicities (of the interviewees) — which we don’t know — and they ask why as well.”The Office of Affirmative Action also uses federal data that looks at the number of Ph.D.s in a particular field, Robinson said. The College of Arts and Sciences then uses this data to see if faculty is taking advantage of the pool of available Ph.D.s.“Excellence comes first,” Robinson said. “Excellent teaching and excellent research, but it is these diverse perspectives that move knowledge forward by pushing the boundaries.”
(02/22/13 5:23am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>The work of merging the School of Library and Information Science with the School of Informatics and Computing will come to fruition in July 2013, Provost Lauren Robel announced in her State of the Campus address.“Change isn’t always easy or pleasant,” Robert Schnabel, dean of SoIC, said. “But this one has been easy and pleasant.”According to Robel, Schnabel and SLIS Dean Debora Shaw, no cuts to either school’s faculty or staff are planned.“The staff from both schools are working together to look at ways to share expenses,” Shaw said in an email. “We see the economic benefits in terms of academic synergies that will provide opportunities for growth.”Both schools are planning for growth at the graduate level.“We plan on creating a master’s in data science, and we would like to be able to make a graduate certificate,” Schnabel said.According to Schnabel, students that are farther along in their student career will be unaffected by the change.“For SLIS students it opens up whole new career paths,” Robel said. “My brother got a degree from SLIS in the ’80s and he works at CISCO now. Librarians have to be data specialists, so this makes a ton of sense.”Both Schnabel and Shaw said there will also be no financial cost to IU due to this merger. “You have to realize that informatics is a growing field and we are a healthy organization,” Schnabel said.Schnabel said the merging of these topped rank schools will create one of the largest and most prestigious informatics schools in the U.S. SLIS was ranked seventh in the U.S. based on academic quality as decided by deans, program directors and faculty members in 2009 by the U.S. News and World Report. Also, SoIC was named a top IT school to watch by Computerworld magazine in 2008.“This is an exciting time for our field,” Shaw said in an email. “Adding breadth and depth by creating this larger school will help our students prepare for challenging careers that will make a difference.”
(02/17/13 9:30pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>IU administration has announced the opening of its first international gateway office, which will serve as a home base for activities in India running through IU. The office is located in Gurgaon, India, a suburb of New Delhi, according to a press release from last week.“The gateway will provide a place for alums to go,” said Vice Provost for Strategic Initiatives Munirpallam Venkataramanan. “There are a lot of Indian students at IU, and a lot go back to their country to start businesses because of the economic boom there. It also allows us to guide studies there.”IU Gateway-India will occupy one floor of the American Institute of Indian Studies in Gurgaon, which is located in the industrial and financial center of the North Indian state of Haryana. The reason behind the new gateway is in part due to alums, but also because of the new programs that IU is opening in the country. “It’s being opened because of all the programs we’re opening in India,” said Venkataramanan. “We have students in India and we’re starting programs with Indian companies. We want to brand IU there. The third aspect is that we want to research. We go there to conduct research in the area, and the gateway will act as a hub.”The opening of the gateway hasn’t exactly been an easy process, though. In fact, the Chronicle of Higher Education just published an article about how hard it is to open universities in India. This may be why there is such a demand for education in the country at this time, according to the article. “India’s education needs are very high, so the opportunities are needed,” said Venkataramanan. “There is a big need for higher education.”Currently, IU is affiliated with nine other universities in India, creating institutional partnerships, particularly through the Kelley School of Business, The School of Public and Environmental Law, the Maurer School of Law and the School of Optometry, according to the press release. “IU will have a huge global footprint with this,” said Venkataramanan. The gateway will be run mainly by OVTIA, with help from the IU staff. “Most of the time they will be here [in Bloomington], but they will be on the ground in India as well, making sure things are going well,” said Venkataramanan.The opening reception of the gateway will take place in the American Institute of Indian Studies in Gurgaon on Wednesday, Feb. 27.
(02/13/13 5:35am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Despite the recent increase in student activism, it is unlikely tuition costs will decrease as a direct result of student protests.Student body president Kyle Straub said this is not because the student voice is not being heard, but because there are several factors that go into setting tuition.“It’s not at all the intent of administrators to raise costs and put pressure on students,” he said.He said tuition costs go to pay for infrastructure, technology and employee salaries and cutting tuition would mean fewer services and improvements for IU.In-state freshmen who enrolled at IU in fall 2012 pay $313 more per semester for 12 to 17 credit hours than in-state freshmen who enrolled in fall 2010, according to the student fees summary released by the Office of the Bursar this year. Out-of-state freshmen enrolled in fall 2012 pay $1,707 more than those who enrolled in fall 2010. However, Straub said the cost of tuition for IU is low in comparison to other Big Ten schools.He said although he does not think student protests will have a direct effect on decreasing tuition, protests have a certain value in spreading awareness of an issue.“I think, in general, it helps administrators quantify the need,” Straub said. “They’re constantly assessing cost versus benefits, and if they know that lots of students are really gripped with this unbearable cost, that’s going to likely encourage them to take more meaningful action.”Elizabeth Himeles, the campus organizer for INPIRG, said in an email that she feels student activism does make a difference.“When policies relating to the cost of higher education are proposed, we can tell our elected officials how we think they should vote, through petitions, media coverage, and lobbying,” Himeles said. “As their constituents, our opinion matters to them.”She cited INPIRG’s ongoing Affordable Higher Education campaign as one example. Last summer the campaign focused on preventing a bill that would double the student loans interest rate nationally.“There was a representative in Indiana who wasn’t sure how he would vote on the bill,” she said. “We collected petitions from IU students asking him to vote the right way, and it made a difference.”Straub said protesters are spreading awareness of the problems of high tuition, but protests may not have much value beyond that.“The sheer volume of voices provides value,” he said. “There’s a difference between promoting awareness and proposing solutions, and the solutions I’ve seen are insufficient. They’re unrealistic.”Straub said he also thinks state representatives are feeling the pressure to meet student concerns, but they have to balance those concerns with the concerns of other groups as well, such as the welfare community. “The real policy that’s going to affect a change in student tuition is at a state level,” Straub said.One proposed policy at the state level is the “tax-free textbooks” bill, HB 1435. According to the IU Student Association website, IU’s student government has partnered with Hoosier Youth Advocacy to lobby this initiative to the state government. If passed, this bill will allow students to file a grant claim with the Department of State Revenue and receive a refund for sales tax paid on textbooks.The text of the bill states the average full-time student pays about $76 in textbook sales tax, but this refund would be capped at $35 per student. The bill is currently in committee at the Indiana General Assembly.Himeles said INPIRG is also trying to lower the cost of textbooks this year as part of their Affordable Higher Education campaign.“Generations of students are graduating in deeper and deeper debt, and the cost of textbooks on top of tuition doesn’t help,” she said. “We want to build a faculty-student coalition to discuss the best possible cheaper textbook options — our favorite being Open Textbooks, although we are looking into IU’s eTexts program as well — and get 50 professors to sign on this semester to using cheaper textbooks. Eventually, we would like to see the whole campus dedicated to using cheaper textbooks.”Straub said the focus of IUSA and the IU administration is thinking of alternative ways to help students save money while paying for higher education.“I completely see both sides to this situation. As a student, it can be very frustrating to see the ever-increasing cost of tuition,” Straub said. “I think students forget that the University provides a specific function. It operates like a business.”Himeles said she has heard from both faculty and students who are frustrated with the situation.“Many people want change,” Himeles said. “It’s just a matter of developing a plan to move forward.”
(02/08/13 4:04am)
Some are worried Senate Bill 409 could result in new teachers not having to meet the same set of standards to get a license.