Get to know your administration
The IU administration is made up of more than 100 administrative offices and services, each of which carries out a different task. With so many departments, it’s hard to remember who does what.
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The IU administration is made up of more than 100 administrative offices and services, each of which carries out a different task. With so many departments, it’s hard to remember who does what.
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>The IU administration is made up of over 100 administrative offices and services, each of which carries out a different task. With so many departments, it’s hard to remember who does what. These are IU’s top three administrators, and here’s what they can do for you.Michael A. McRobbie, presidentMcRobbie was appointed as IU’s 18th president by the IU Board of Trustees on July 1, 2007. As the president, McRobbie is responsible for each of IU’s eight campuses, which has an approximate total budget of $2.7 billion, more than 16,000 faculty and staff and about 100,000 students. McRobbie, a native of Australia, received his bachelor’s degree from the University of Queensland and his doctoral degree from the Australian National University. To contact the Office of the President, call 812-855-4613, email iupres@indiana.edu or visit indiana.edu/~pres/.Lauren Robel, provost and executive vice presidentRobel officially took over the provost position on July 1, 2012. The provost serves as the university's "Chief Academic Officer," overseeing and advancing the interests of undergraduate, graduate, and professional education on campus.Robel is the Val Nolan Professor of Law, and served as the dean of the Maurer School of Law from 2003-2011. Robel graduated summa cum laude from Maurer Law and earned her bachelor's degree with honors from Auburn University. The provost office is located in Bryan Hall Room 100. Her email address is provost@indiana.edu.Harold "Pete" Goldsmith, dean of studentsGoldsmith was named dean of students in 2009 after overseeing student affairs and enrollment at Kent State University. He received his undergraduate and doctoral degrees from IU. “The dean of students leads the Division of Students Affairs,” Goldsmith said. “We provide direct support services for students, try to remove barriers for students and provide programs that enhance students’ educational experience.” The dean’s office can be found in the Indiana Memorial Union. His phone number is 812-855-8187 or email iubdos@indiana.edu.
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Trampled flowerbeds along with an abundance of litter and chalk graffiti are some of most common sites students see around campus after the madness, as some students have described it, of Little 500 week subsides.With the semester winding down and multiple events happening at once, the IU Department of Physical Plant Campus Division Manager Mike Girvin said Little 500 makes it easier for him and his crew to keep the campus looking clean. “We certainly want the campus to look really good,” Girvin said. “With Little Five week so close to commencement, it gives us a reason to push along.” Girvin said the main problem during Little 500 week is the amount of litter. He estimated there is 40-50 percent more litter than normal between the week of Little 500 and commencement.“People are putting flyers up on car windows and polls around campus, so we have to do a lot more cleanup than normal,” Girvin said. Around the time of the race, maintenance crews are in the middle of the flower-planting season.“Sometimes it gets a little frustrating because we’ll get a lot of flowerbeds torn up and those kind of things, but we know that’s always the actions of a few and not the masses,” Girvin said. Girvin said he and his crew will come in early on race days to oversee the trash pickup and look for any potential damage or problems. “Collegiate fun is fun,” Girvin said. “Vandalism and damage — we won’t tolerate that.”Though IU has had a problem in the past with students damaging and vandalizing the art around campus, Sherry Rouse, curator of campus art, said it hasn’t had any problems this year. “I think the combination of a strong police presence and location has helped,” Rouse said. “Since the fountain is not on yet this year, that should help subdue would-be swimmers and fish-nabbers.”The maintenance crews have been working hard this week to clean and emphasize the highly visible areas around campus. “We’re accelerating a lot of the athletic venues,” Girvin said. “We’ll give them those added touches so they look as good as they possibly can.” Though there is a lot of traffic during Little 500 week, Girvin said it’s not the most difficult maintenance week each year. “The most challenging weeks are the week of move in and move out,” Girvin said. “The car gets full, so people just leave stuff all over the place.”Though the week of Little 500 creates a lot of work for the maintenance crews, Girvin said he just wants the students to have fun and stay safe. “Every year when my employees come in at 6 a.m. during Little Five week, we tend to find people sleeping under trees, under bushes and on sidewalks,” Girvin said. “We worry about them. We just don’t want to see anyone get hurt.”
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>The IU chapter of Indiana Public Interest Research Group currently lacks the necessary student body support to maintain its pledge. INPIRG is a nonprofit, student-run and student-funded organization that works on different public interest issues. “We work to raise money for and relieve hunger and homelessness, cut wasteful government subsidies for junk food, get corporate money out of politics, lower textbook prices, advocate renters’ rights, educate students about sustainability and start recycling programs both off and on campus,” said Rachel Bond, intern on the democracy campaign for INPIRG. For INPIRG to continue on campus, the organization must have support from 10 percent of the student body. Bond said the group is having trouble getting enough support because IU’s enrollment has gone up by 10 percent since INPIRG started the pledge drive last semester.“We’re getting more pledges than ever, but it isn’t enough due to the increase in enrollment,” Bond said. “We were only 311 pledges short of 10 percent last semester.” Last semester, INPIRG gained 2,022 pledges of $10 each. It plans to do another pledge drive this semester to get the rest of the needed support from the student body.“We are also meeting with organizations and faculty in order to get signed statements of support, which basically say that they want us to stay on campus and that the administration should let us continue our work,” Bond said. “We will also be meeting with the dean of students to show evidence of our support and the good work we do so that we can keep our pledge.”Dean of Students Harold “Pete” Goldsmith said options are being discussed in regard to the student group and its future activities. “I asked Steve Veldkamp, the assistant dean of students and director of the Office of Student Life and Learning, to work with the INPIRG leadership to chart a course for the best way forward,” Goldsmith said. “I know he has talked with them, and they have discussed options.”If INPIRG does not receive the necessary student support, Bond said students would be the ones missing out. “Even though most people wouldn’t notice if INPIRG was gone, a lot of important work would go undone,” Bond said. “The volunteers and interns at INPIRG would miss working and doing these important things on behalf of their campus.”
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>When senior John Brown found out he was awarded the 2012 Gates Cambridge scholarship, he yelled. “I think my whole neighborhood probably heard me,” Brown said. “I was very excited.”The award — a highly competitive full-tuition scholarship and the equivalent of a Rhodes Scholarship to Oxford University — will allow Brown to attend the University of Cambridge, located in Cambridge, England. While there, Brown plans to receive a Master of Advanced Study in pure mathematics. In 2000, the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation donated $210 million to the University of Cambridge to set up the Gates Cambridge Trust. There are 90 full-tuition scholarships awarded each year; 40 go to U.S. citizens and 50 to international students. Brown started the application process in October 2011 when he sent in a regular application to Cambridge. To apply for the scholarship, he had to send in an extra letter of recommendation. “Their criteria for giving the scholarship is different from the admission criteria for Cambridge,” Brown said. “Getting into the math program is essentially based solely on mathematical qualifications, while the Gates is based much more on their own criteria.” According to the Gates Cambridge Scholar website, the scholarship is awarded on the following criteria: intellectual ability, leadership capacity, desire to use knowledge to contribute to society and fit with the programs offered at Cambridge. “There’s kind of an extra part to it than just applying for Cambridge,” Brown said. All candidates shortlisted for the award are required to attend an interview with a Trust official, two academics and a past Gates Cambridge award recipient. At IU, Brown is studying mathematics and English. He is a member of the Phi Beta Kappa fraternity and used to write a weekly column for the opinion section of the Indiana Daily Student.“We’re incredibly proud,” said Mark Land, associate vice president of University Communications. “He’s had a very unique combination of interests, and he’s combining them in very interesting ways. This is a very prestigious scholarship, and we’re very proud that he’s going to be representing IU.”Brown said he was very satisfied when he found out he had received the award. “It’s a wonderful opportunity, and I’m really excited to be doing this,” Brown said. “It’s hard to put into words. It’s a huge relief knowing where I’m going to be next year, and I’m very happy with the amount of support from the University."
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>IU employees want a 3.5-percent salary raise. The Communications Workers of American Local 4730, a union for IU-Bloomington support staff and IU-Northwest clerical and technical staff, is seeking for a raise that will help employees make ends meet, Union President Bryce Smedley said. “Employees are really struggling, especially when they haven’t seen raises that keep up with rate of inflation,” he said. Last year, employees who were members of CWA 4730 received a 1.5-percent increase when IU President Michael McRobbie asked all the employees to “shoulder the burden of this bad economy,” Smedley said.“We were happy to take the 1.5, thinking that this is what we were all going to do to really get through,” he said. “We then find out that the top administrators turn around and give themselves huge increases.”Last year, the IU board of trustees approved a 12-percent increase to McRobbie’s salary of $476,000. Most of the workers who are part of the CWA union are secretaries, cooks, servers, janitors, maintenance workers and technical staff. “A lot of these employees keep this University running, and a lot of them are actually some of the lowest-paid employees on campus,” Smedley said.Forty percent of the support staff earn less than $30,000, more than $8,000 less than the Monroe County average, Smedley said. He also said he knows money is available and IU is in a financially sound place. “If they’re able to find huge raises for some of the top income earners on campus, then I think they can really start to address some of the lowest-income earners and find money to make people at least pay their bills,” he said.For employees to receive a raise, the University will have to take into consideration what next year’s enrollment will be as well as the cost of benefits, such as social security, retirement and health care. Budget conferences begin next week, and members will outline where the money is coming from and how much they will have to spend.The University will then take the budget to the Indiana state legislature. Once the legislature approves, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer Neil Theobald will present the budget to the IU Board of Trustees. “Clearly, we are incredibly dependant on our employees,” he said. “We try to provide good health care, provide good retirement benefits, salary. We just have to see where we are on the budget.” Smedley said the union’s biggest struggle is helping those who work at IU make ends meet without raising the cost of students’ tuition. “If IU can’t give us a 3.5 raise or a 3 percent raise, we would really like to hear their justification, and we’d like to know if they are going to advocate for the lowest income employees on campus or not,” he said.Today, the CWA union asks for staff, faculty and students to wear green as a silent protest to show IU administrators the demand for affordable health care.
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Recent statistics released by the University have shown a spike in enrollment figures and an increase in the number of credit hours students are taking, setting records at three different IU campuses: IU-Bloomington, IU-East and IU-Kokomo. “Our enrollment figures strongly indicate that IU continues to be a destination of choice for Hoosier students and students from across the nation and world,” Ryan Piurek of university communications said. “They are also testament to the quality of our world-class faculty and staff, as well as the diversity of our academic offerings.”IU saw an increase in students from the 2010-2011 spring semester, with 23 more at IU-Bloomington, 373 at IU-East and 276 at IU-Kokomo. IU-Bloomington had an increase of 860 credit hours from the 2010-2011 spring semester.IU-East Chancellor Nasser Paydar said the flexibility IU-East offers is what helped the school lead the University in enrollment records. IU-East has had 10 semesters of significant growth and increased its enrollment by 68 percent in the last 4 or 5 years. “Having that type of consecutive growth, that’s really significant,” Paydar said. “A large majority of our students stay in the state of Indiana, so as our students increase and our numbers go up, we feel like we are contributing to the economic development of the state.”
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>The Indiana University eText initiative has saved 5,300 IU students as much as $100,000 by allowing professors to select eTexts instead of traditional textbooks to teach in class.eTexts first became available for faculty to consider for classes in September 2011 but are now available for all classes to use this spring semester.“I’m very encouraged by the adoption of the faculty and what we’ve heard from the students,” said Brad Wheeler, IU vice president for information technology. “I think the faculty and students are finding that the capability of working the text digitally is pretty remarkable.” After the IU fee model was developed to charge each student who takes a class using eTexts, an agreement was issued between five publishers to supply eTexts to these students. The fee is really no different from how students are obligated to pay for the student technology fee, Wheeler said. “Essentially what we’ve done is negotiate a very favorable pricing for students where the publisher drops the price substantially if each student pays for it when he or she takes the course,” Wheeler said. “So if the textbook is originally $100, you would often see an eText fee of $30 to $40.”The eText method was first developed to lower the cost of textbooks for students. Under the current model, students had an average savings of $25 per book or online supplement.“Before, we saw a lot of things starting to happen in pricing that was not favorable for students,” Wheeler said. “If we had not worked out this deal, then students would be looking at paying retail prices for those things, which is one of the things that we are really trying to help.”Students will know when they enroll in a course if its respective professor is using an eText. Once enrolled, they will find an eText fee added to their bursar bill.“Once you enroll in a class and your digital materials show up in Oncourse you can then use them on an iPad, Droid (tablet) or just a PC with a web browser,” Wheeler said. eText materials can be used with any device that can access the internet. This means the texts can be read on computers, tablets and smartphones, which includes iPads, iPhones, Android-based tablets and phones and some Kindles.Although IU is seeing an increase in the quantity of students using eTexts, bookstores like T.I.S. College Bookstore that also sell e-textbooks have not had the same experiences. The e-books that T.I.S. and the IU Bookstore sell are different from the eTexts that are available through IU classes. When a professor decides to use eTexts through IU, students in that class are obligated to use an eText. E-books at T.I.S and the bookstore are an optional choice for some classes. “They haven’t really taken off. Our sales have really not been terrific on them,” said Tim Lloyd, text manager at T.I.S. “A lot of students, given the choice, are still choosing to use a hard copy of the book.” Junior Alley Murphy said she is glad that not all classes are requiring eTexts, even though none of her classes are offering them. “I’m definitely more likely to use the textbook version,” Murphy said. “I process information better when it’s in writing, and it helps to be able to make notes or underline, and even though you technically can do that through a computer, it’s just not the same.” Lloyd said he believes more students might starting using e-books in future years.“Part of the thing with the e-book is that teaching from the e-book is partly going to come from people who learned via an e-book,” Lloyd said. In January, the Pew Internet and American Life Project found that 29 percent of Americans own at least one tablet or e-book reader.As reported by the Associated Press, the percentage of people who currently own a tablet device nearly doubled between mid-December and early January, rising from 10 percent to 19 percent.Wheeler said there are currently five other universities that are also beginning to use the eTexts IU started using a few years ago. “These pretty key universities are essentially starting trials now for eTexts that are the same ones that we’ve been doing for the last couple years,” Wheeler said.Lloyd said that, as a bookseller, he sells both hardcopy textbooks and e-books, but when students are choosing which to use, it depends on how vital a role the textbooks play in the class. “The bottom line and the most important is, how do students learn?” Lloyd said. “Right now, I don’t think any of us have the answer to that.”
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>After a life full of technology, students are addicted. The preoccupation with electronics and the need to be constantly connected has led students to feel a need to check their computers, phones or iPods even when they’re not supposed to, IU journalism professor and researcher on technology and identity Hans Ibold said. “I sometimes, in large lecture classes, have students who I’ll be looking right at them. I’ll see their Facebook page opened, and they still can’t keep from interacting with it,” Ibold said. According to a study released by the Neilsen Company, Americans spent 53 billion minutes on social networking sites in May 2011 alone. “When I ask students about their study habits, they always, consistently, have multiple screens open, and they have their phone and social networking site on while they’re studying,” Ibold said. “Rare is the student who tells me they shut everything off in order to just read or write.”IU Mobile has benefitted from students’ need to be connected. Since IU Mobile debuted in September 2009, there have been 31,000 downloads of the smartphone application on the Apple App store and 16,000 downloads on the Android and about 600,000 total hits.“We’ll continue to make more services, more functions available because that’s really become the expectation,” said Brian McGough, director of enterprise software for University Information Technology Services and IU Mobile project manager. “I think the base expectation has evolved into where you should be able to access your data really anytime, anywhere.”Ibold’s field of study, identity and how it is affected by the media and technology, shows how caught up students are with the preservation of their technological identities. “Identity formation and maintenance has become a preoccupation for people, not just young people, but people across the board,” said. “The tools that students use every day, especially the identity management tools like Facebook, which essentially is a way to manage identity, is very preoccupying to students.” Drug and alcohol addicts seek dopamine, a neurotransmitter that enables people to not only experience rewards, but also perform more of an action to get to the rewards. Studies from the American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry have found that while technology itself is not addictive, the way people use it can be. “We are getting notifications from Facebook and email that creates these random reinforcement schedules where we’re getting these rewards on these random schedules which leads to these dopamine squirts which creates a mild euphoria,” Ibold said.“On a random schedule, research shows that we are getting addicted to those reinforcements, and we seek more and more of that out as opposed to spending more time with the existing information.”Because of the amount of information available, analysts often study how the information relates to society.“You have this global reservoir of knowledge at our fingertips, but figuring out what it means or being able to place it into context and being able to think through it, that’s knowledge, and that’s different than just having a million points of data that you have access to,” Ibold said. Many students believe the more information they have, the closer to knowledge they are, Ibold said. Instead, the factors of real knowledge take a deeper attention span. “I think that there is a bit of a danger here where we can be diluted into thinking that we are getting smarter and that we’re more knowledgeable when we have all this information,” Ibold said. “More information doesn’t lead to wisdom or even knowledge.”
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>In a US News and World Report ranking released Tuesday listing top online graduate education degree programs, the IU School of Education placed within the top half of 160 institutions.In the report, IU ranked in three out of the four categories. The University’s best category was admissions selectivity, in which it ranked 15th. IU also ranked 43rd in faculty credentials and training and 50th in teaching practices and student engagement. “We did well in the categories that were identified as contributing to high-quality online education programs,” School of Education Dean Gerado Gonazles said. “The ability to engage students and respond to their needs in an online environment contributed to our ranking.”The same faculty that teaches on the IU campus also helps teach the online courses. “We take quality education very seriously, and for decades, our faculty have been developing online instruction and doing research so that we learn from our experiences,” Gonzalez said. “That means that we are able not only to improve our own instruction but increase the field at large.” Elizabeth Boling, associate dean for graduate studies, said the good rankings will help attract more students to the program.“People are looking for a quality program, and this is a great way to extend our reach to contact the students that want access to our program,” Boling said. Boling said the school hopes to continue to improve its standing next year.“The rankings are kind of like a mirror where we can engage in continuous improvement,” Boling said. “I’m really confident that we’ll continue to increase in the rankings.” This is the first year the US News and World Report came out with the rankings for online schools, which shows how much online education is growing, Gonzalez said.“This is a rapidly growing field, probably one of the areas that is most rapidly growing,” he said. “So it’s good to be recognized in that area, and we’re very proud of the quality of our program and the impact of those programs. And we’re very pleased to see that the US News and World Report recognized that in their rankings.”
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>In December, IU received a total of four grants from the National Science Foundations’s Global Environment for a Network Innovations project that will help IU research new computer networks. This is the third time IU has been awarded a GENI grant. The sum, which totals $2.3 million, will be used to research, build and test new computer networks. “We need researchers to develop new technology,” said Beth Plale, professor of computer science and director of the Data to Insight Center of Pervasive Technologies. “Experiment is needed to research and create a new network, and the GENI project supports that.”The daily use of high-traffic Internet sites, including social media forums Facebook and Twitter, tends to create a decrease in the Internet server activity speed. “Communication traffic slows down the network,” Plale said. “We really need to develop new networks.”Dave Jent, associate vice president for the IU Global Research Network Operations Center (GlobalNOC), said the money will be used to create the next-generation research platform. “The current Internet really isn’t capable of holding the capacity that is being used,” he said. The new grants will also help fund IU network programs that are already in place. OpenFlow and GlobalNOC will be given money to conduct research about how to switch the network hardware and what to do in the event that an emergency shutdown occurs.“The NSF created GENI to create an environment to run experiments,” Jent said. “IU will be researching software, training materials and operational tools.” Plale said she thinks IU received money for the GENI project because the University is a major player in computer science. Jent said IU’s advancement in the information technology field is what got the University the funding.“IU is really leading a lot of the network development,” he said. “There really is no one else doing what we’re doing.”
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>In the beginning of December, University Information Technology Services unveiled a new service called Campus 411, which can be used on the IU-Bloomington and IU-Purdue University Indianapolis campuses. Callers are able to connect with a live operator who will answer any questions about the campus or campus activities. “We are here to help the students,” Sandy Cunningham, assistant manager at the IU-Bloomington call center said. “We find and try to answer any question a student might have.” The new service is available on IU mobile, a web service designed specifically for smartphones and similar mobile devices. It offers services such as bus schedules, maps and campus alerts. “We can give you information about campus, phone numbers, building codes and numbers, directions, when the next basketball game is and a lot more,” Cunningham said. “We can really answer any question.”The service will give students the ability to call someone that knows all the answers,” said Brian McGough, director of enterprise software for UITS and IU mobile project manager. “Students can call Campus 411 instead of having to go hunt down the information themselves,” McGough said.Cunningham said the service might be useful to students this new semester.“If a student looks at their schedule and doesn’t know where a building is, they can call us, and we can give them directions to exactly where they need to go,” she said. Bethany Wendt, a junior who uses IU mobile, said Campus 411 sounds like a pretty good idea, especially for freshmen. “It sounds like a really cool service. All you have to do if you get lost is call a number and they’ll navigate you back,” Wendt said. So far, the call center has seen great results, Cunningham said. “We’ve seen the statistics and so far we are very happy with how well it is going.”
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>The IU administration is made up of 117 administrative offices and services, all of which carry out a different task. With so many departments, it’s hard to distinguish who is who. These are IU’s top four administrators, and here’s what they can do for you.President Michael A. McRobbieMcRobbie was appointed as IU’s 18th president on July 1, 2007, by the IU Board of Trustees. As the president, McRobbie is responsible for all of IU’s eight campuses, which has an approximate total budget of $2.7 billion, more than 16,000 faculty and staff and about 100,000 students. McRobbie, a native of Australia, received his bachelor’s degree from the University of Queensland and his doctoral degree from Australian National University. To contact the Office of the President, call 812-855-4613 or visit www.indiana.edu/~pres/.IU Provost and Executive Vice President Karen HansonHanson has been working at IU since 1976. She first worked as a faculty member in the Department of Philosophy, then as the chairwoman for the philosophy department. She was later named dean of the Hutton Honors College before finally being appointed provost. “The provost is the chief academic officer,” Hanson said. “The campus schools report to the provost and so do the student affairs office, along with the various academic auxiliaries.” The Provost office is located in Bryan Hall Room 100 and her email address is provost@indiana.edu.Dean of Students Harold “Pete” GoldsmithGoldsmith was named dean of students in 2009 after overseeing student affairs and enrollment at Kent State University. He received his undergraduate and doctoral degrees from IU. “The dean of students leads the Division of Students Affairs,” Goldsmith said. “We provide direct support services for students, try to remove barriers for students and provide programs that enhance students’ educational experience.” The Dean’s office can be found in the Indiana Memorial Union, and the phone number is 812-855-8187.Associate Vice President for University Communications Mark LandLand will take over for Larry MacIntyre, who will retire June 30, 2011. Land had previously worked as executive director for corporate communications at Cummins Inc.The Associate Vice President for University Communications works as a liaison between IU and the media to give out information. He also speaks for the University on questions relating to policies, the president and the Board of Trustees.To contact the Communications office, call 812-856-1172.
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>IU President Michael McRobbie announced Tuesday a formalized agreement between IU and Ivy Tech Community College to move a part of Ivy Tech’s enterprise equipment to the IU Data Center located on the IU-Purdue University Indianapolis campus. “We at Indiana University see this as an opportunity to again be responsive to the broader educational needs of the entire Indiana community,” McRobbie said in a press release. “Students at both institutions as well as all Indiana taxpayers will benefit from this partnership.”The agreement is an effort by McRobbie to “maximize efficiency by sharing facilities and capabilities,” according to the release.To build a new data center, Ivy Tech would have had to potentially spend more than $18 million. The new agreement saves taxpayers money and brings separate institutions together. “With this agreement Ivy Tech can utilize a modern facility for critical equipment and not attempt to retrofit an old facility to meet the IT demands of the 21st century, saving taxpayers and students of Indiana millions of dollars,” Ivy Tech President Thomas Snyder said in the release.
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Last year, IU President Michael McRobbie tasked Provost and Executive Vice President Karen Hanson and IU-Purdue University Indianapolis Chancellor Charles Bantz with analyzing and critiquing IU’s academic progress. “These (academic) units are well-managed, and many are very highly ranked,” McRobbie said in the report. “However, especially on the IU-Bloomington and IUPUI campuses, they have mostly remained the same for many years. Indiana University has the duty, from time to time, to ask hard questions about its academic structures.”The committee reported on six recommendations. Hanson commented on the recommendations during a Bloomington Faculty Council meeting.“We may have to think in new ways to capitalize on the distinctiveness that we have as a university,” Hanson said. “We want to have things that are appealing to the best students in the country.”THE REPORTRecommendation 1: Despite funding reductions, IU must continue to make strategic investments in existing and new programs. Recommendation 2: Reductions in financial support to academic programs must be applied strategically.Recommendation 3: IU must reduce barriers and encourage innovative alignments among academic units. Recommendation 4: IU should seize opportunities for enhancing academic administration efficiency. Recommendation 5: IU must reduce administrative barriers to academic excellence and innovation. Recommendation 6: IU must focus on enhancing revenue strategically and cost effectively.
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>The Bloomington Faculty Council met Tuesday for the last time this semester. After the approval of minutes, memorial resolutions and agenda committee business, Vice President and Provost Karen Hanson spoke about the new academic direction report. “The committee came up with a number of recommendations,” Hanson said. “We want to identify our strengths and play to them appropriately.” Next, Professor and Vice Provost for Faculty and Academic Affairs Tom Gieryn spoke about the merger, reorganization or elimination of academic units and programs. The BFC will meet again next semester.
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>The IU Board of Trustees met Thursday and Friday to discuss current and future construction projects, an update on the new academic directions committee and IU’s cost benchmarking report. On Thursday, Trustee Patrick Shoulders whistled the Indiana fight song to let people know it was time to start. The facilities committee was the first group in front of the board. Vice President for Capital Projects and Facilities Tom Morrison presented a PowerPoint on IU’s current construction projects. The trustees made sure to ask whether any of the construction projects exceeded the budget.“None of the projects that I am showing you are over budget,” Morrison said.At IU-Purdue University Indianapolis, the Sidney and Lois Eskenazi Fine Arts Center’s design was approved. IU-South Bend’s north and south parking lots were also approved. The next items on the agenda were the new residence hall complex and apartment complex on Third and Union streets in IU-Bloomington. The project approval was discussed for 30 minutes.“In the next couple years, are we really going to need this new residence hall?” student Trustee Abbey Stemler asked. Both IU Residential Programs and Services Executive Director Pat Connor and Morrison assured Stemler there is definitely a need for the new residence hall. The board passed the new residence hall and the new apartment complex’s design approval. After an hour-long lunch and executive session, the trustees resumed to talk about the Academic Affairs and University Policies Committee. The newly released academic directions research was the main topic. Since early this year, President Michael McRobbie and Executive Vice President and Provost Karen Hanson tasked the new academic directions committee to look at other universities and see what IU can do differently to be more efficient and become more like IU’s competitors. The report’s analysis will be looked at by the trustees and IU’s faculty and will be discussed further at the next board meeting. Friday, the trustees restarted their meetings at 8 a.m with the discussion of the Finance and Audit Committee. The main topic of discussion was the cost benchmarking report. “There has been for a while a long-time mismatch between our resources and our goals,” said Neil Theobald, vice president and chief financial officer. Kathleen McNeely, associate vice president for financial management services, said IU could save as much as $24 million with the help of the recommendations of the new report. Nothing that was brought before the trustees was disproved. The trustees will meet again May 6 on the IU-Bloomington campus.
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>The IU Board of Trustees met Thursday in Alumni Hall. Nine trustees were present while trustee Derica Rice was absent. The meeting was called to order at 9:30 a.m. with the facilities committee presenting first. The committee discussed a review of current projects on all of IU’s campuses as well as design and project approval for construction on the IU-Purdue University Indianapolis, IU-South Bend and IU-Bloomington campuses.After an hour and a half break for lunch and the executive session, the academic affairs and university policies committee asked for approval of 11 new and reworded degrees on the IU-Kokomo campus and one degree on the IU-Purdue University Columbus campus. No business was voted on; everything that was approved Thursday will be voted on Friday.
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>The Bloomington Faculty Council met Tuesday to discuss an update on math credit and policy reform. President pro tempore Erika Dowell, during the agenda committee business,discussed whether there were any objections about the Communications Workers of America, a telecommunication union, having representation on the BFC. There were no objections and from now on the CWA will have representation on the council but will not be able to vote, Dowell said. Provost and Executive Vice President Karen Hanson gave her presiding officer’s report about the new academic directions committee.“It offers some criteria for investment, some criteria for pursuing the areas we have strengths,” Hanson said. “It also makes a lot of comments about administrative issues.”The results of that committee should be out in the next couple of weeks, Hanson said.Vice Provost for Enrollment Management David Johnson discussed an update on the language of how many credits of mathematics incoming students need. “In August of last year it became apparent that a review was needed,” Johnson said. “The data was analyzed and we did two preliminary reports and we believe that it’s important to return to the policy to the approved language of seven credits.”The last BFC meeting will be 3:30 to 5:30 p.m. April 19 in the Georgian Room of the Indiana Memorial Union.
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>University Information Technology Services had the first-ever Adobe Day on Monday in the Frangipani Room at the Indiana Memorial Union.The goal of the program was to teach and explore the Adobe products and technology that are free to all students. “IU has this great landmark software deal with Adobe where we have all this great software and a lot of people don’t know that it’s there. They don’t know what folks around IU are doing with it,” said Bob Flynn, manager of information technology community partnerships at IU. “This event is basically to raise awareness of our relationship with Adobe and the wide variety of things that people do with it.”There were short demos of Adobe products, presentations, interactive photo and video shoots and community showcases to show how IU faculty, students and staff are using Adobe technologies throughout campus. On the floor of the Frangipani Room, the Center for Innovative Teaching and Learning had a table to show students and faculty how they use Adobe products. “Here at Adobe Days, we’re showing some of the ways that instructors have used Adobe technology for instructions,” said Roger Henry, learning technologies consultant at CITL. “Students of today are children of the technology era, and it’s time that teaching kind of goes to them instead of expecting lecture halls and overheads.”Students were encouraged to look around, ask questions and take advantage of the creative ways to use Adobe technology. “I was just walking by and I was like, ‘OK, what’s this?’” freshman Adrian Wynn said. “It’s pretty cool. I didn’t know a lot of this stuff was offered for free.”