CMYK
The Official student newspaper of the University of Indianapolis
MEDIA day coverage > See Page 4
HIGHER EDUCATION COST GETS HIGHER
> See THROGMARTIN on page 3
$31,060
’09-’10 ’10-’11 ’11-’12
’12-’13
$7,990
$8,570
$22,790
$30,010 $22,020
$28,580 $20,970
$8,270
’03-’04 ’04-’05 ’05-’06 ’06-’07 ’07-’08 ’08-’09
$7,610
$28,110 $20,320 $7,790
$27,100 $19,540 $7,560
$26,080 $7,380
$18,700
$24,990 $17,980 $7,010
$23,450
A 3.5 percent tuition increase for the 2012-2013 school year at the University of Indianapolis was announced through a campus wide email sent on Feb. 1. This academic school year also saw a 3.5 percent increase in tuition from the preceding year. This sets full-time undergraduate tuition at $23,590, an $800 increase from this year, and room and board with a 14-meal plan option at $8,570, a $300 increase. The executive committee of the Board of Trustees made the decision to raise tuition. “We work very hard to keep the price as low as we possibly can,” said University of Indianapolis President Beverley Pitts. “We don’t want to lose any students, because they can’t afford to be here financially.” Vice President for Student Affairs and Enrollment Management Mark Weigand said that as tuition rises, the university’s efforts are to continue to offer more institutional aid to offset the cost of higher education for UIndy students. He also said that UIndy has done a good job at keeping its tuition increases consistently low. He said he looked at both a five-year and 10-year span of tuition increases for Indiana’s
$17,300
By Stephanie Snay EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
YEARLY TOTALS TUITION ROOM & BOARD
$6,150
Tuition to rise in 2012-2013
$22,660
The recent loss of a member of the Board of Trustees has left many shocked and surprised. Jerry Throgmartin, secretary of the Board of Trustees, executive chairman, CEO and President of H.H. Gregg Appliances Inc., died Jan.22 while visiting his ranch in Colorado. “He is a very kind and gentle man. I say ‘is’ because it is hard to believe he is gone. When you meet somebody who is in a powerful position like that, a chief executive officer of a major corporation, you expect a stereotypical and brisk personality, but he was the opposite,” said University of Indianapolis President Beverley Pitts.“Kind of soft spoken, very thoughtful, a good listener, friendly, easy to work with. You could tell how much he loved UIndy, and it was a great pleasure to work with him.” Throgmartin graduated from the University of Indianapolis with his bachelor’s degree and received his master’s of business administration degree from Indiana University. He also received an honorary degree from UIndy in 2010 for his commitment to the community and the university. “When I knew Jerry, he was a student athlete at the University of Indianapolis playing football. He was a humble and modest person, and he never changed,” said Board of Trustees member Mike Watkins. “He is the most humble and successful business person I know, and he has left his mark all over Indiana and even further, but he never put his own name on anything. It was always the company’s name [H.H. Gregg] that he would put on everything.” While visiting his ranch in Colorado, Throgmartin fell ill and died of complications from meningitis. He was 57 with a wife, Peggy Sue, a son, Gregg, and two daughters, Christy and Nicky.
$16,720
By Abby Ropes STAFF WRITER
$5,940
Sudden loss hits UIndy
$32,160
reflector.uindy.edu
FEBRUARY 8, 2012
$23,590
I S S UE 7
INCREASE BREAKDOWN
VOL.
90
Graphic by Laura Fellows
private colleges, and that UIndy had one of the lowest increases overall. The email sent to the campus community about the tuition increase included links to UIndy’s Financial Aid Office website and to the online FAFSA application. The email urged students to file the FAFSA by the March 10 deadline. Pitts said that one of the things students always wonder about is what drives tuition increases.
She said that often times students think that what they see is what causes the increase. She used the Super Bowl activities as an example and explained that those were funded with money that the Super Bowl Committee paid to use the Athletics and Recreations Center. Pitts said it costs around $200,000 more each year just to maintain licenses for the technology UIndy has. The new dormitory also was discussed.
“The residence hall will bring in additional students, and those students will bring in additional revenue,” Weigand said. According to Pitts, tuition is increased to maintain the university’s operating costs and provide quality education. “It’s a good time for UIndy,” Pitts said. “We’re happy that we don’t have to have a larger increase to maintain the quality education the UIndy students deserve.”
Pitts shares her NFL experiences
Pitts tells students and faculty about her time and lessons learned working with the NFL Players Association By Leeann Doerflein STAFF WRITER
Photo by Kelbi Ervin
Members of the New York Giants walk to media day events at Lucas Oil Stadium on Jan. 31. Some of Pitts’ responsibilities with the NFLPA included Super Bowl events.
OPINION 2
SPORTS 4
entertainment 6
University of Indianapolis President Beverley Pitts spoke on Jan. 25 at the third annual Provost’s Lecture about her time with the National Football League Players Association. Students and faculty gathered in Ruth Lilly Performance Hall to hear the details of Pitts’ career as a journalist, researcher and communications consultant for the NFLPA. The NFLPA is the union for professional football players in the National Football League. Established in 1956, the NFLPA has a long history of assuring proper recognition and representation of players’ interests, according to NFLplayers.com. In her lecture, Pitts talked about how she rose from being a journalism professor at Ball State to working in the NFLPA. “I wanted to take a year off to work professionally as a journalist. I had done work with magazines and newspapers, but I wanted to work in a national media environment,” Pitts said. “I contacted people I knew and used my media connections.The gentleman who was the director of public relations of the NFLPA said he would be willing to take me on.” Pitts worked with the NFLPA for about 20 years. During her career with the NFLPA, she worked for the director of public relations, writing stories for and about the players, covering and writing stories about events, writing for broadcast and working with video. Pitts and the NFLPA worked to help people to see things from the players’ side and help break stereotypes. “The players are not much older than many of you [referring to the students
FEATURE 7
in the audience]. They have always had people taking care of them. Many of them [players] come from poor families, and they have suddenly found themselves in the midst of money. Their careers are on the line with every game,” said Pitts. Another part of Pitts’ job was conducting research on retired and retiring players. She completed five studies over 15 years. In addition to learning lessons about football through her career as a journalist and researcher, Pitts offered some advice that she learned through working in sports media. “In sports journalism there is a sort of ‘I love sports, so I should be a sports journalist’ [mentality]. But it needs to be ‘I love journalism,’ because you need to know your craft,” Pitts said. “It’s not your knowledge of sports that gets you there, it’s your ability to work in a media environment.” In addition to her journalistic lessons, Pitts learned lessons that can apply to everyone’s life, such as “there are no easy ways,” which she learned by watching football players play each game as if it were their last. Pitts learned that there is an internal culture to every field and organization, so to be successful, one must learn to play by that culture’s rules. Pitts also learned from going from the culture of academia at Ball State University to the different culture of the NFLPA that “going outside gives you a better look inside yourself.” Pitts said she learned that “you have to pay your dues to get an opportunity for the big chance” when she saw that her skills from previous jobs as a journalist could transfer to her job at the NFLPA. Pitts says she also learned that sometimes one just has to throw caution to the wind and go for it.
Meditation classes
> See reflector.uindy.edu
An example Pitts gave was when she pretended to know how to write a TV script. Along the same line, the final life lesson Pitts imparted was to try anything. “Working for the NFLPA wasn’t in the requirements for becoming UIndy’s president, but what I learned there, and the new experiences I had made life more interesting, my opportunities greater and my skills better.You just never know where a door might lead, so be sure to open it,” Pitts said. Pitts also cleared up the misperception, which some students may have, that professionals who are established in their fields did not have obstacles on their way to the top. “Everybody faces obstacles, and when you see successful people later in their career, you have the impression that things have gone just fine for them,” Pitts said. “But everybody has faced the obstacles you are facing, the difference is they just kept plodding along.” After the lecture, in the discussion portion of the evening, a student asked what had been Pitts’ greatest career achievement. “My greatest achievement is just being president,” Pitts said. “It’s as if everything I had done was leading up to this achievement.” Reflecting on Pitts’ career as president, Mark Weigand, vice president for student affairs and enrollment management, remarked that Pitts guided the growth of the university from the outside in. “President Pitts brought with her experience to UIndy the ability to grow with the larger community and within the university,” said Weigand. “We’ve obviously grown in enrollment, but we’ve also been able to work together as a community under her guidance.”
Body image
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