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Ethnic student groups at UT
Independent Collegian IC The
Thursday, April 7, 2011
Serving the University of Toledo since 1919
www.IndependentCollegian.com 91st year Issue 51
‘UT Matters’ to be cut By Jaimee Hilton IC Staff Writer
Joseph Herr / IC
Studying in the rain Aaron Jones, a junior recreation and leisure studies major, seeks shelter from the rain as he studies underneath one of the awnings outside of the Student Union.
The University of Toledo will be ending its “UT Matters” program and advertising campaign in order to save money for the Fiscal Year 2012 budget. The program, which was used to communicate with the community about the different programs, people and aspects UT has to offer, has cost the university $400,000 a year. “What we’re going to do is continue to work with the Toledo Blade and Buckeye Cable on ongoing programs,” said Larry Burns, vice president for external affairs and interim vice president for equity and diversity at UT. “We, within my division, will be doing more of the production work and things of that nature. We will still be getting our word out from a marketing perspective, but we’ll do a lot more of it internally.” Burns was faced with having to consider ending three programs at UT to save money for the university. The programs included the
One dress, one month
Blue and Gold Scholarship program, efforts to market UT to Michigan students and UT Matters. Burns said there were two major factors involved with choosing to continue the Blue and Gold scholar program and advertising UT to Michigan students over the UT Matters program. The Blue and Gold Scholars program has been very successful in recruiting students from all over Ohio, Burns explained. “It continues to be a financially positive program for the university,” he said. “It produces positive income as well as offering students the opportunity to go to college that would otherwise not go due to financial reasons.” Burns said the university’s investment in marketing to Michigan students has proven to be effective. “Not only are we recruiting
Fiscal 2012 Budget and Reengineering Taskforce
more students from a broader geographic range. Financially, it produces that positive bottom line for the university,” he said. According to Burns, keeping programs like the Blue and Gold Scholarship is important because “we are not yet where we want to be as it relates to top of mind and reputation across our region, so marketing and advertising plays an enormous role in getting the word out about what we offer at UT, where we are, who we are and where we’re going.” Associate Vice Burns President for Marketing Esther Fabian and her department oversee UT Matters and work with The Blade, Buckeye Cable and the other advertising agencies. They coordinate the ways in which all of the participants are involved and help with interviews and filming. “Well, I don’t know that there
President’s Recommended Budget
Board of Trustees FY 2012 Operating Budget
Raising money and awareness for the Daughter Project By Vincent J. Curkov IC Staff Writer
As dresses come out of the wardrobe as the weather warms up, some women are raising awareness for sex trafficking by wearing their Sunday’s best for a month. Erika Lowry, a senior majoring in social work, said the One Dress, One Month Project is an event where women wear one dress for a month to raise awareness about sex trafficking in Toledo. “[We hope] to open people’s eyes to what is going on,” said Shannon Longnecker, a junior majoring in biology. According to the Columbus Dispatch, over 1,000 youths were trafficked in Ohio alone - a majority of which pass through Toledo, making it the fourth highest city in the U.S. in terms of sex trafficking incidents. The One Dress, One Month Project also raises money for the Daughter Project, a Christian non-profit organization dedicated to helping victims of sex trafficking in Northwest Ohio. “It just struck something in me like, wow, women should not be treated like that,” Lowry said. The money raised by the Daughter Project will go toward building a house to act as a recovery center for victims of sex trafficking, Lowry said. The Daughter Project will not reveal the location of the house
until construction is complete because of the safety of the workers and victims. In the past, pimps and other nefarious characters have vandalized the site or assaulted workers. The event was inspired by a student at Bowling Green State University, Amy Scissert, who wears a dress for six months to support the effort. Lowry said a Facebook group started and “exploded” to almost 150 members. The One Dress, One Month Project was started by Lowry and Longnecker, who hope to raise money as well as awareness. In order to participate, students have to wear a dress from March 24 to April 24. They do not have to sleep or work out in it. Participants are also not shopping for clothes during the month and donating the money they would have spent to The Daughter Project. Some women are getting creative with how they wear their dress. “Some girls have worn their dresses as scarves, but me, I’m not as creative,” Longnecker said. The One Dress, One Month Project has several participants who are also members of Campus Crusade for Christ and International Justice Mission. CRU is a non-denominational Christian organization on campus and IJM is a program that helps victims of sex trafficking. The Toledo chapter was — Dress, Page A4
Photo courtesy of TheDaughterProject.org
will be negative effects. There will obviously be some fiscal benefits to discontinuing the program. We will be able to efficiently meet the same objectives in terms of letting people know things that are going on at the institution through other means,” Fabian said. No UT jobs will be lost when the program is cut. “The internal people will just have more work passed to them, the people in marketing and communication,” Burns said. “The external people we worked with, we just won’t be working with them any longer.” Fabian said when the program is cut they will be incorporating more marketing initiatives they have been working on for a while in order to continue advertising for the university and keeping the community informed on the happenings of the university. She said they’ll be using more traditional forms of advertising as well as newer forms including social media and other interactive ways through the Internet.
President
Special Liaison Senior Leadership
Responsibility Group
Fiscal 2012 Budget and Reengineering Taskforce
Finance & Strategy Committee
Budget Hearings
Colleges | Divisions
Constituency Representation Photo courtesy of Utoledo.edu
The flowchart above represents the process flow for the Fiscal 2012 Budget and Reengineering Taskforce at the University of Toledo.
Budget suggestions By Oreanna Carthorn IC Staff Writer
With imminent budget cuts looming for Fiscal Year 2012, UT’s Budget and Reengineering Taskforce is asking faculty, staff and students for cost-saving suggestions that would improve UT. Over 200 suggestions to help fill the more than $30 million shortfall have been collected, including furloughs, outsourcing student services and eliminating bonuses for all. Chuck Lehnert, special assistant to the president and interim director of the Scott Park Campus for Energy and Innovation, is leading the group to evaluate ideas on how to save the university money. The group is also seeking revenue-generating suggestions. “The budget is tight and getting worse,” Lehnert said. “We had to do something different than what we’ve been doing
traditionally because we need to come up with a bigger reduction.” Lehnert said the taskforce is trying to find opportunities to fix operational issues through the suggestions. Students, faculty and staff can submit their suggestions through the taskforce website or by simply telling Lehnert a suggestion in person. “They are all pretty much variations of the same thing,” Lehnert said. “They are either here is an opportunity for us to reduce or consolidate, here is an opportunity for us to generate additional revenue.” These ideas have been categorized as overarching ideas, span of control or department consolidation, faculty productivity,
outsource and co-sourcing, underperforming functional areas, best operational practices, efficiency and lowdollar impact improvements, bottom-up ideas, and revenue enhancements. All ideas are being considered and evaluated based on how feasible and valid they are, according to Lehnert. “It can’t be in conflict with the strategic plan,” Lehnert said, as a first step for evaluating the ideas submitted by the university community. Other examples of suggesLehnert tions submitted include smaller printing quotas, reevaluating marketing budgets, increasing faculty workload and eliminating tenure for faculty. “We haven’t adopted any— Budget, Page A4