The Hawk 9/16/2015

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Donut worry Good eats on a college budget

THE HAWK THE HAWK September 24, 2014 Sept. 16, 2015

The Student Newspaper of Saint Joseph’s University | Volume XCV | Est. 1929 | www.hawkhillnews.com

$5 MILLION

PROJECTED

University officials confirm future layoffs

ACTUAL

FISCAL YEAR 2016 REVENUE GAP

Revenue gap and lower enrollment contribute to budget cuts KATRYNA PERERA ‘16 News Editor There is a possibility of upcoming employee layoffs and budget cuts, officials of Saint Joseph’s University recently confirmed. The impending layoffs and cuts have been caused by the university not bringing in as much revenue as expected, according to University President, Mark C. Reed, Ed.D. This was partially caused by a lower total enrollment of undergraduate students for the 2015-2016 academic year than was budgeted for, according to Joseph Lunardi, ’82, vice president of marketing and communications. This fall, 4,528 students are enrolled as full-time undergraduates, 27 less than the previous year, according to Maureen Mathis, assistant provost for undergraduate enrollment. Additionally, freshmen enrollment was lower than expected, totaling 1,176 students. This is about 125 less than the targeted number of 1,300, according to Mathis. “The admissions world is a tricky world…we’re relying on 18-year-olds to make an admission decision, to make a life decision, and it’s really the first major decision they’re making,” Mathis said. “I think in the end it was just that students had decisions to make and 1,176 of them chose Saint Joseph’s.” The university received the same number of applications as last year, but decided not to admit as many applicants, said Lunardi and this process improved and lowered the acceptance rate of the univer-

sity by three percentage points from last year, according to Mathis. “A decision was made in the spring to not go deeper into the applicant pool, simply for the sake of adding paying students,” said Lunardi. “The quality decision took priority over the quantity decision, so we’ve seen small improvements in selectivity, in test scores in certain majors, in entering GPA, in diversity statistics… [but] there has been no major transformation in the makeup of the entering class.” Besides enrollment, the budget for the 2016 fiscal year also seems to be in a slight state of disarray. According to an email sent from University President Mark C. Reed, Ed.D., to all university employees, even though the 2015 fiscal year was completed with a positive increase, current projections estimate that there will still be an unresolved gap of $5 million for FY16. This gap is due to both the lower than projected enrollment and the university’s largest expense—employee compensation—continuing to increase at a faster rate than revenue, according to the email. But despite the $5 million unresolved gap for FY16, next year’s budget is expected to have a $7 to $8 million surplus, according to Lunardi. “So what we’re looking at addressing is how much of a healthy surplus to maintain not fixing a deficit. If we did nothing there Continued LAYOFFS, Pg. 2

Paid academic help for freshmen Coaching offers students specialized tutoring for a fee JULIA CAUTELA ’17 Hawk Staff Last fall, the Office of Learning Resources caught backlash from the student body after reducing the number of tutors and assigned tutoring sessions available to students due to budget cuts. In response, this fall the ORL is offering more hours for peer tutoring sessions, but in new ways. Supplemental Instruction sessions and academic workshops are still available through the OLR, but the most notable change is the installation of the new academic coaching program. Academic coaching is a fee-based pilot program offered to a select group of first year

Photo by Maura Duffy ’17

Saint Joseph’s University students. Students that are interested must apply for entrance into the program through an online application on the OLR website. It allows them to work one-on-one with an academic coach. The program is offered only to freshmen students in order to better help them transition into college life, according to Kim Allen-Stuck, Ph.D., assistant vice president of student success and educational support. The change was made possible in part by shifting the bulk of hours from walk-in to appointment-based. According to “Changes in Learning Resources Center tutoring services,” published in The Hawk on Oct. 22, 2014, both student workers and students who utilized the tutoring services were disappointed by the cutbacks. Students employed by the tutoring center or who held jobs through Federal Work Study were not asked to return, and walk-

in hours for certain courses were no longer offered. “[Cutting the number of tutors available] really could have negatively affected the students who relied on those services at the time,” said Marisa Woodford, ’18. According to Allen-Stuck, the Office of Student Success fielded multiple requests for academic coaching after the tutoring staff was slimmed down from 70 workers to almost 25. These requests were then relayed to the OLR, but at the time, the office had only two employees and could not provide tutoring to the student body. The cost of the new program ranges from $800 to $1,440 per semester, depending on how often a student meets with a coach. The role of the academic coach is to help the student with organizational skills and prioritizing tasks. The coach meets with the student for one to two hours on a weekly basis. Currently, there is no financial aid available for the program. Learning Strategies Consultation is another service offered by the OLR, similar to academic coaching—the difference between the two however lies in the price and Continued COACHING, Pg. 2

Repeated robberies lead to campus arrests Surge in criminal activity surrounding St. Joe’s ANA FAGUY ‘19 Special to The Hawk On the night of Sept. 11, two men carrying BB guns and masks were stopped and arrested by Philadelphia Police on the corner of Cardinal Avenue and Overbrook Avenue, according to Public Safety officials. No students were involved in the incident, said John Gallagher, director of public safety and security. This security update follows a string of criminal activity near Saint Joseph’s University community that started the beginning of the academic year. Since Aug. 26, there have been five gunpoint robberies, each occurring between 8 p.m. and 2 a.m. In each attack, St. Joe’s students had their phones, wallets and money taken, according to Gallagher. In response to the recent surge in criminal activity, the Public Safety and the Philadelphia Police Department have increased patrol in the neighborhoods and streets surrounding campus. No changes to the increased patrol have been annouced since the Sept. 11 arrests. “We haven’t seen a problem like this is quite some time,” Gallagher said. “Nonetheless, one is too many because it affects the quality of life for students, and primarily that is a concern.” In response to students, Public Safety has also amped up their bicycle patrol, which will now operate full-time throughout the year. There are seven full-time assigned bike patrol officers covering the entire university. The university is divided into three bicycle sectors and the bicycles patrol 24 hours each day. All seven officers have been trained to patrol on bikes, and are CPR and AED certified. The bike patrol officers will offer high visibility and be able to get anywhere on campus quickly, said Michael Cora, public safety bicycle supervisor. Bicycle patrol has the ability to go places that vehicles cannot, and do so at a faster pace than an officer on foot, he said. “[The bike patrol is] the new face of security, foot patrolmen on steroids,” said Cora.

Photo by Matthew J. Haubenstein, M.A. ’17


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