Volume 115, Issue 4
the VISTA “Our Words, Your Voice.”
ucentralmedia.com vistanews1903 @thevista1903 @thevista1903 The Vista
Tuesday, September 12, 2017
UCO DREAMers’ Future Faith Kelly
@TheVista1903 Reporter
President Donald Trump's decision to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) caused a reaction from the University of Central Oklahoma's leaders; President Don Betz, Student Body President Stockton Duvall, and the Office of Diversity and Inclusion all released statements about the action. According to the University of California at Berkeley “The purpose of DACA is to protect eligible immigrant youth who came to the United States when they were children from See “DREAMers” continued on page 8.
Supporters of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA chant slogans and hold signs while joining a Labor Day rally in downtown Los Angeles on Monday, Sept. 4, 2017. (AP Photo/Richard Vogel)
Cigarette Tax Burns College Budgets Christian Tabak @TheVista1903 Reporter
State funding for higher education could be in for an additional three percent slash if state legislators decide to implement further budget cuts to state agencies in an attempt offset the loss of projected funds from the state’s failed cigarette fee. Last month the Oklahoma Supreme Court struck down the legislature’s $1.50 cigarette cessation fee as unconstitutional, dropping a projected $215 million from the Fiscal Year 2018 budget. In response to the loss in revenue, lawmakers began inquiries into the hypothetical impact of an additional 3.17 percent acrossthe-board cut to agency budgets to compensate for the loss in revenue. For the Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education, this would translate into the loss of $24.5 million in addition to the $36 million already cut as part of the FY 2018 budget allocations, according to Angela Caddell, the Regents’ Vice Chancellor for Communications. “Following the higher education budget reduction for FY 2018, a potential additional cut would result
in additional negative impacts to the state system of higher education, including the threatened continuation of tuition waiver programs such as concurrent enrollment, the Academic
Scholars program and the Regional Baccalaureate Scholarship,” said Caddell. The possibility for an additional reduction in funding comes as both
Oklahoma State Capitol in Oklahoma City, Okla. State Legislatures are considering taking higher education funds to offset the loss from the state’s failed cigarette tax. (Provided/ Wikimedia Commons).
the State Regents and the state’s institutions for higher education have been scrambling to adjust budgets to an overall decrease of 17.8 percent since FY 2012. “Our state system of higher education continues to implement significant cost cutting measures already, including sharing faculty and administrators between institutions, consolidation of back-office administrative functions, joint academic degree programs between institutions, travel reductions, early retirement options and consolidation of campus sites,” said Caddell. Other areas impacted by the cuts could include course offerings for the Spring 2018 semester, degree completion initiatives, institutional accreditations and the ability for institutions to match research and grant funding opportunities from federal programs such as National Science Foundation or NASA, according to Caddell.
See “Budget Cuts ” continued on page 9.