Miami has a budget problem: what does that mean? became biggest blessing”: Peyton Scott's road back from injury

ABBY BAMMERLIN MANAGING EDITOR LUKE MACY

ASST. CAMPUS & COMMUNITY EDITOR

Miami University is facing a budgetary problem, and unless it’s able to fix it, Miami officials worry about the longevity of the university’s reserves.

“We are going to have to tighten the belt in the next few years,” Provost Liz Mullenix said.

The problem

During Miami’s annual budget symposium, Mullenix said the university faces a more than $36 million budget deficit. The deficit means the provost must pull $16.2 million from university reserves. The other $20 million will be offset by open faculty positions.

The symposium, which took place on Monday, Feb. 6, was led by David Creamer, vice president for finance and business services and university treasurer. The presentation went over Miami’s 2023 fiscal year, which will begin July 1 and will last through June 30, 2024.

Creamer explained the university is reacting to national trends of low enrollment for domestic and international students, as well as competition from other universities. However, the university’s decision to draw on reserves isn’t a long-term solution.

“The issue is we can’t sustain doing this in the future without finding a way to reverse the trends that we’re facing right now,” Creamer said. The revenue gained from tuition has continued to decrease from 2018 until today — down $50 million this year from the 2018 tuition revenue. Although tuition increases each year, Miami has also been increasing the amounts given in scholarships.

“Tuition has gone up every year … It’s the discount that’s really killing us, right?” asked Todd Stuart, director of arts management and entrepreneurship.

Mullenix agreed.

“We have to discount because it’s a totally competitive market,” Mullenix said.

JACK SCHMELZINGER SPORTS EDITOR

To ensure its incoming classes have enough diversity, high-performing students and other markers, Miami has had to discount its tuition to appeal to students. Despite the university enrolling more students than ever, Miami made less in tuition revenue in 2021 than in 2001.

Another contributing factor to the deficit is the decreasing aid from the state of Ohio. Funds from the state are much lower than in years past, even lower than in fiscal year 2001 — the first fiscal year Creamer oversaw.

The university has continually raised tuition to account for the reduced funds from the state.

“We can go back to 1976, the year I graduated from college, tuition at

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[his] blood pressure and it would be low and normal,” Jill said. “It was so labile that I had to throw him out."

Dave claims this was Jill’s fault.

“In large part, it was due to what she was wearing that day, and some days it impacted my blood pressure more than others,” said Dave, as he ate a chocolate heart taken from Jill’s bowl of candy. “It was her fault that it was screwed up.”

From that study on, they were blissfully stuck together. Their offices as beloved Miami professors currently sit just above one another in Pearson Hall. Jill’s bowl of heart chocolates never quite safe.

Love Birds

It took two tries for fate to pair the two academics. The second was an act of sabotage.

When Jill Russell was a graduate student at Miami University, she was on a search for high blood pressure participants for her study. Fate — or maybe Cupid — had other plans. The graduate student of a faculty member with uselessly low blood pressure gave her a name, Dave Rus- sell, and told her how to find him. There, in Dave’s first-floor research lab, she found a participant for her study. A tall, high-blood-pressured, willing participant and her future husband. His participation, though, did not last long.

“Sometimes I'd take his blood pressure and he would be borderline high, high, and other times I'd take

“One day, another grad student came into the lab and said, ‘Hey, how would you like to be in a Birding Competition?’ And I'm like, ‘I'm doing brain surgery and you want me to go look at birds?’” Jill recalled.

She maintained her rejection of the invitation until the grad student

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$5 deposit. FanDuel offers a bonus bet guarantee with a $10 stake.

For one anonymous senior biology major, the marketing has worked.

“The only reason that I do it is because I got the $200 in free play,” the senior said. “The second I lose it, I'm not playing again because the house always wins.”

The biology major is up $225 on DraftKings, all from the “free money,” and he’s not in this hobby alone. His house is home to four bettors, and they’re not the only ones he knows.

“We all do it just because we got free money and I feel like it's a pretty commonplace activity,” the senior said. “Most guys that I know are involved in some way, shape or form.”

A tale as old as time

Sports betting has been around campus before it was consuming every ad slot. One anonymous junior

It’s March 5, 2022. Peyton Scott and the Miami RedHawks women’s basketball team are playing in their final game of the season against the University of Akron, already long knocked out of Mid-American Conference (MAC) tournament contention. It’s been a disappointing season. Still, Peyton Scott has balled out, averaging nearly twenty points per game (ppg), on her way to a second consecutive AllMAC honor.

About halfway through the second quarter in Akron, senior guard Vanessa Garrelts grabs a defensive rebound. She flips it to Scott, who cuts through Akron’s transition defense on the way to the bucket. Scott goes up for the layup, gets fouled and lands in a heap. One of the best players ever to call Miami home doesn’t know it yet, but she just tore her ACL. Head Coach DeUnna Hendrix sounded somber as she went through her post game interview, but what she said was true.

“She’ll be fine,” Hendrix said. “It’s Peyton Scott.”

Everyone who’s met Scott knows exactly what Hendrix meant. Scott is unbelievably tough. In a more recent interview with The Miami Student, Hendrix expanded on her sentiment.

“I don’t think you have enough time for me to describe her,” Hendrix said. “She’s resilient. She’s a leader in a servant type of way. She wants to get things done. She’s been with us for years now, and there's times where she’s going to get us [the coaches] lunch. It’s always about, what can I do for someone else [for her]. The past three years haven’t been easy on her, and she’s constantly thinking ‘well, where else can I give? What else can I do?’”

Scott is a kind, thoughtful person. And a killer on the court.

“She wants to leave a legacy. She works her butt off and she expects everyone around her to do the same thing. She plays harder than anyone I’ve ever seen play.”

Regardless, going through such an unfortunate injury wasn’t easy for the star guard.

“Last game of the season against Akron, right before half time I go up for a transition layup,” Scott said. “I just came down wrong. My first real injury. I had never had surgery before. It was a devastating thing. Going into it, my biggest fear was tearing my ACL. Out of all the injuries, that has one of the longest recovery periods, and once you do it the retear rate goes up.”

Scott, from Lynchburg, Ohio, a rural village about an hour and a half east of Oxford, was an incredible prep player at Lynchburg-Clay High School. She played varsity hoops from her freshman year on, earning All-District honors three times and being named All-Ohio twice. In her senior season, she averaged 27.4 ppg, 10.9 rebounds per game (rpg) and 5.0 assists per game (apg), on her way to becoming Lynchburg-Clay’s all time leading scorer with 2,202 career points.

Fast forward to college ball, Scott is playing in her fourth season with Miami basketball. Her fourth excellent season.

She started all 30 games her first year and averaged 12.5 ppg on her way to MAC All-Freshman honors. Her sophomore eason, she averaged 21.2 ppg, 6.7 rpg and 5.2 apg. She even threw in 2.7 steals on average, making for an incredible season that earned her a spot on the All-MAC Second Team. Last year she won