Mar. 7, 2007 | The Reflector

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UNIVERSITY OF INDIANAPOLIS

Road trippin’

Nationally Bound

Make your ultimate Spring Break driving mix.

UIndy sends record-setting seven wrestlers.

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THE

REFLECTOR .UINDY. EDU

REFLECTOR MARCH 7, 2007

VOL . 85 / ISSUE 9

Tuition, room and board increase 3.9 percent By Shelly Grimes MANAGING EDITOR The University of Indianapolis Board of Trustees approved a 3.91 percent increase for both tuition and room and board for the 2007-2008 school year on Feb. 15. Tuition will increase 4.49 percent to $19,540, an $840 increase. Room and board rates, based on a 19-meal plan, will increase 2.44 percent to $7,650, a $180 increase. Combined, costs will increase 3.91 percent to $27,100, a total increase of $1,020. “We have to look at our expenses and look at our revenue [when raising tuition],” said University of Indianapolis President Beverley Pitts. “We worked very hard to keep tuition as low as possible.” In the 2005-2006 school year, UIndy’s tuition was the third-lowest of all private four-year institutions in the state, with only Huntington College and the University of St. Francis costing $280 and $940 less, respectively. According to Pitts, this year’s tuition increases should keep UIndy among the most affordable private institutions in the state, even though enrollment at UIndy is among the highest of these schools. In the fiscal year that ended June 30, 2006, UIndy’s total operating costs totaled

slightly over $70 fund, which is million, according an unrestricted to Mike Braughton, fund that can be vice president for used in investbusiness and fiing back to the nance and treasurer. university, Pitts Net tuition income said. These Each increase figure represents the percentage increase from the previous year. accounted for about funds can be $45 million, or 64 used to help Tuition Total Room & Board Increase percent, of these relieve student total costs. The rest costs. ----$16,720 $5,940 $22,660 2003-2004 came from earnIn the 2006$17,300 3.4% 2004-2005 $6,150 $23,450 ings in investments, 2007 school $17,980 6.5% 2005-2006 $7,010 $24,990 gifts, government year, 82 percent 4.3% grants and room of UIndy stu$7,380 $26,080 2006-2007 $18,700 and board costs— dents received $19,540 3.9% 2007-2008 $7,560 $27,100 which, according some type of to Braughton, are financial aid, The total tuition and room and board costs for the 2007-2008 school year “set to break even” and according represents a 16.38 percent increase from the 2003-2004 total tuition and and do not result to the UIndy room and board cost. in a profit for the public Web site, university. the average fiAt the end of the nancial aid 2006 fiscal year, the package was GRAPHIC BY EMILY SCOTT university’s endow$13,356 for enment had a market tering students. value of $70 million, Braughton said. The even out “the good and the bad years.” Braughton said that many students are endowment is a fund in which those who “The last three years we have had offered tuition “discounts,” which are not donate specify the donation itself cannot a bear market, and we’ve had negative considered scholarships or grants because be spent, but must be invested and the returns,” Braughton said. “We try not to there is no funding behind them. return from the investment can be used let that influence our pricing decisions. Braughton said that giving these for specific purposes. On average, growth in the endowment is discounts is a common practice, and Braughton said that the university tries positive over a period of time.” even state schools, who receive state tax to spend about four and a half percent of The university also receives about $1 dollars, offer these incentives to attract the endowment each year, which helps million each year in gifts to the annual good students.

University of Indianapolis Tuition Trends, 2003-2008

“It’s like buying a car,” Braughton said. “You rarely pay sticker price.” Additionally, the trustees voted to increase the maximum number of credit hours students can take without paying additional charges to 18 hours. Previously, students taking more than 17 credit hours had to pay additional fees on top of tuition costs. Federal grants will also help keep costs down, according to Pitts. The maximum annual amounts for the Stafford Federal Loan will be increased to $4,500 for sophomores, while juniors and seniors will continue to be eligible for $5,500 per year. The university also announced that it anticipates that the maximum Pell Grant will be increased by $260 for students who qualify based on financial need. Pitts also said that keeping costs down was a priority. “We have been working with scholarships and financial aid to raise new money and push and lobby for grant money,” Pitts said. “We are always looking for ways to keep students’ costs down…I hope students will know we all work hard to be fair and open and honest about the increase. Tuition will increase because costs increase, but I hope students realize that a lot of our investment is in people.” (For a more complete look at tuition trends, see “More money, more questions” on Page 9.)

Krannert Memorial Library turns 30 By Rachel Korb STAFF WRITER

TOP LEFT AND ABOVE: JOAN SAVAGE/ THE REFLECTOR

TOM RASTALL/ THE REFLECTOR

Above: Freshman Courtney Coleman studies in one of KML’s trademark egg chairs. Left: Students study on KML’s first floor. The library stands at the west end of campus overlooking Smith Mall.

Faculty senate agrees to admit more NIT students By Katy Yeiser EDITOR-IN-CHIEF More students will be admitted into the Ningbo Institute of Technology (NIT) program in China, and more NIT students will in turn enroll on the university’s campus after a Faculty Senate decision on Tuesday, Feb. 27. The Faculty Senate voted in favor, 18-2, on a motion that will allow a fourth cohort of students into the university’s partner campus. The two senate members who voted against the motion were Associate Professor Charles Guthrie and Assistant Professor Ted Frantz of the history and political science department. Guthrie and Frantz, along with other faculty members, voiced concerns for the efficiency of the program that had its first students admitted to UIndy’s campus at the beginning of the 2006-2007 school year. They said they were concerned with the extra workload faculty members take on in order to accommodate NIT students. Concerns ranged from the students’ writing levels to their understanding of plagiarism. In China, the concept of plagiarism is one that does not recognize independent authorship of works, so some students may be inclined to use

other people’s work verbatim without proper citation. However, the faculty members did not say they found these problems with each NIT student, and said they find the same issues with any other student on UIndy’s campus. An evaluation of the program developed by Matt Will, associate dean for the School of Business, and Mary Moore, vice president for research, planning and international partnerships, was distributed to faculty members in early February in an attempt to evaluate the NIT and address the faculty’s concerns. “It’s a part of a general education practice that you evaluate a program persistently. In order to improve, we have to do an evaluation,” Moore said. “[The evaluation] indicated that there were some challenges in the first semester. Overall, students did well at the Indianapolis campus.” She said NIT students did not do as well at the China campus, however. The students studying in China have to make more adjustments to the Americanized education system than those studying on an American campus, Moore said. Moore said she expects 30 additional NIT students, at maximum, to study on UIndy’s campus. There are currently around 30 NIT students here who have one year left of academic curriculum.

Krannert Memorial Library is turning 30 this spring. KML’s ground-breaking ceremony took place on March 23, 1976. According to University of Indianapolis Archivist Christine Guyonneau, many dignitaries were present on campus, including Senator Richard G. Lugar and Indianapolis’s mayor at the time, William H. Hudnut III. Former university President Gene Sease led the ground-breaking ceremony. “We dubbed it the ‘Heart of the University,’” Sease said. “We felt that the library should be at the heart.” Ellnora Krannert provided half of the $6.5 million needed for the library’s construction through the Krannert Chari-

table Trust. The building was created as a memorial to her husband Herman C. Krannert. Ellnora Krannert was responsible for finalizing the construction plans, and she made some of her own changes when Sease brought her the blueprints. “I was telling her that it would be the most prestigious building on campus,” Sease said. “She said that if it’s the most prestigious, that’s where the president’s office ought to be. So she took a pencil, [and] on the set of plans that I showed her, she drew that one-story wing that is now the entrance on the south that goes straight into the president’s office.” Prior to the construction of KML, the library was located in Academic Hall (now Esch Hall). The library used all four floors of Academic Hall with an area the size of

See KML, Page 3

Cutting-edge forensic video lab opens on UIndy campus

TOM RASTALL/ THE REFLECTOR Law enforcement personnel from North America and Europe visited UIndy on Monday, Feb. 26 for the opening of the new Digital Multimedia Evidence Processing Laboratory located in the basement of Sease Wing. The lab, which will be an important training site for criminal investigators, was unveiled with a ribbon-cutting ceremony followed by a demonstration of the technology. (Left) Grant Fredericks, the principal instructor for the Law Enforcement and Emergency Services Video Association (LEVA), demonstrated how LEVA uses video analysis to solve crimes.


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