The Alestle, Vol. 75 No. 35

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THE

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School of Nursing to receive new equipment PAGE 2

Drag show comes to main street at Recess Brewing

New assistant coaches bring new hopes for men’s basketball

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Southern Illinois University Edwardsville

the student voice since 1960

Wednesday, July 27, 2022 Vol. 75 No. 35

Increase in funding allows more students to become eligible for MAP Grant LIV KRAUS reporter

With an increase in funding for the Illinois Monetary Award Program (MAP), more students are able to receive money to help cover the costs of tuition. The Illinois MAP Grant is a needbased grant that’s designed to financially aid families who aren’t able to support the cost of college. “It’s an Illinois-based program and it’s just Illinois students so it doesn’t apply to SIU Edwardsville students coming from another state,” SIU President Dan Mahony said. “It only applies to people from Illinois.” Mesha Garner, director of student financial aid, said there are more than 2,800 SIUE students who benefit from the Illinois MAP Grant. “You would need to complete the FAFSA in order to determine eligibility,” Garner said. “Not all students are eligible for the Illinois MAP Grant; however, many are if they’re in financial need.” Garner said that financial aid can benefit students by allowing them to use it to pay for other expenses. “The Illinois MAP Grant is tuition

and fee targeted so that means it goes di- but also reduce the amount of students rectly towards your tuition and fees, while who are eligible and aren’t able to receive some of the students’ other financial aid the grants.” options can extend beyond that,” Garner Mahony said more than half of the stusaid. “It creates more space for your other dents who use the Illinois MAP Grant are financial aid to pay for other things.” first-time college students, which would Mahony said cause them to be many higher edumore affected by cation institutions lack of funding. have been request“Sometimes ing an increase for first-generaThe maximum award in the maximum tion college stuamount awarddents, sometimes last year that a student ed for the Illinois they’re later to could get before the MAP Grant beapply or later to cause it would refill out the FAFspring addition was only sult in more money SA, and therefor students to use fore they’re not $5,496, but now it’s been on tuition and feweligible or don’t increased by $1,700 and er students getting receive the MAP turned down for funding even if now totals $7,200,” the grant. they have that “In the past, financial need,” Mesha Garner sometimes up to Mahony said. Director of Student Financial Aid 50,000 students Garner said who were eligible the state of Illididn’t get the grants because the money nois decided to increase the award amount ran out,” Mahony said. “By increasing the to see more students eligible for the Illinois amount available for the grants, not only are MAP Grant. we able to increase the amount per student, Meanwhile, Gov. J.B. Pritzker has stat-

ed that this year every student who applies will receive a MAP grant, leaving no one on the waitlist for the first time in 20 years. “The maximum award last year that a student could get before the spring addition was only $5,496, but now it’s been increased by $1,700 and now totals $7,200,” Garner said. “So, students get $7,200 if they are eligible for the maximum award of the Illinois MAP Grant.” Mahony said that everyone should at least fill out a FAFSA because even if someone comes from a high-income family, they can still be eligible for federal loans. “There are a lot of students who apply for financial aid,” Garner said. “However, there are more students out there who could benefit that haven’t taken advantage of what’s available for them.” Garner said she encourages all students to apply for financial aid as early as possible. FAFSAs can be filed beginning Oct. 1. “We’re in a different time right now where things are happening where increases are available,” Garner said. “If students don’t want to miss out on the money that’s available to them they should definitely apply early, fill out their documents.” For more information, visit the Student Financial Aid website.

Lovejoy Library cuts databases to fund staffing DATABASE

RENEWAL COST

COST PER USE

Humanities International Complete

$7,187.70

$4.14

Linguistics and Language Behavior Abstract

$4,439.02

$10.09

Oxford English Dictionary

$3800

$11.62

MORE DATABASES:

EMILY STERZINGER editor-in-chief

Access to 10 databases provided by the library ended on July 1. These cuts were made to allocate funding to staffing the understaffed library. Eric Ruckh, the interim dean of library and information services, said that $1.8 million of the $3.8 million library budget is spent on electronic acquisitions. Over 95 percent of the total acquisitions budget is spent on electronic databases. “The largest part of our acquisitions are used to support electronic resources,” Ruckh said. “The amount that we’re spending on electronic resources has been growing incrementally by way of inflation and beyond for many years.” Out of its college library peers in Illinois, Lovejoy Library is the most underfunded. Ruckh said that in the past, the electronic acquisitions budget was sustained by letting staff positions go unfilled. “The library right now is understaffed, critically understaffed. It’s understaffed to the point where basic operations are threatened,” Ruckh said. Ruckh said in the past, there were

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440 uses during the fiscal year 362 uses during the fiscal year

America: History and Life, Historical Abstracts, PAIS International with Archive, Philosopher's Index, IOP Science, Alexander Street Video, Global Newstream

eight employees doing the work to make resources in the library, physical and digital, discoverable. Currently, there are three employees doing that work. “They are pressed to their limits. If we lose one critical person, we might lose access to really basic functionality in this library,” Ruckh said. Ruckh said decisions on renewals were made by looking at cost per use and overlaps of information. “Some of the databases we cut are covered by other databases and titles. We tried as best we could to think about cost per use and other alternative coverage,” Ruckh said. “Is that enough for a robust collegiate collaborative process? No, but we had to start somewhere.” Kristine Hildebrandt, a professor in the English department, said her colleagues had some concern about the number of resource uses reported regarding the decision to make cuts. “They were using some kind of a click model, how many times these resources had been clicked on. A lot of faculty weren’t sure where those numbers were coming from, because they felt like if their own use and their own teaching and their

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1,736 uses during the fiscal year

own classes had been counted that the click numbers would be higher,” Hildebrandt said. A consultative process to decide which databases should be renewed is in development to be tested in the fall. Ruckh said decisions about renewals were made before this process was available because if the library had waited, funding would not be able to be internally transferred from electronic acquisitions to staffing. “An annual review process would have multiple data points, would understand and be aligned to norming use against student populations and faculty research, and it would be collaborative,” Ruckh said. “That is, it would involve faculty from outside the library on conversations about databases.” Allison Thomason, chair and professor of the history department, said she understands Ruckh’s choice in restructuring the budget, but that the losses of certain databases hurt students. “When we lose ‘America: History and Life,’ which is a really important indexing database for students to do research, and faculty, but mainly our students at all levels -- from undergrad, to our majors, to our masters and doctoral students -- it is a

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very important tool and it hurts to lose it,” Thomason said. “We’re doing everything we can to try and get it back.” Hildebrandt said she feels the Oxford English Dictionary and Linguistics and Language Behavior Abstracts were the most important databases to her teaching out of the cuts made. She said the Modern Language Association database is still a good alternative resource, but has its challenges regarding the study of linguistics. “[MLA] gives you much broader responses outside of linguistics. So LLBA has always been more focused and specific to linguistics and language studies,” Hildebrandt said. Thomason said Ruckh has been “incredibly transparent” about the cuts made, and that he said that no decision is irrevocable. “We had a meeting with Dr. Ruckh yesterday and it made the faculty feel supported by [him.]” Thomason said. “He’s one of us too, he’s a historian, so he understands the importance of research tools, and our point again was just to make sure these cuts are made equitably according to program needs.”

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