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Eagles play in pink Pg. 7
Vol. 44 Issue 23
PG. 4
New VP position to improve enrollment By SHANNON HALL Staff writer
THE
Thursday, February 20, 2014
SHIELD www.usishield.com
President Linda Bennett is adding her first vice president position – vice president for enrollment management (VPEM). “It’s a brand new position for the history of our university,” Provost Ron Rochon said. “The primary objective is to have this person come in with a skill set that is innovative and bold to help us better prepare, be proactive and strategic as we think about both recruitment and retention.” Recruitment and Retention haven’t worked well together for the university. Before, students came to USI because they wanted to be a Screaming Eagle. “We’ve been a bit...the term is not passive...but we’ve been fortunate,” Rochon said. “We haven’t had to do a lot of investments as it pertains to (recruitment) to the university.” USI hired Noel Levitz, a consulting firm, to help figure out where USI needs to go from here. “We found out we had some practices that (are) not necessarily contemporary or no longer relevant in regards to the needs of students,” Rochon said. USI’s enrollment has decreased 8.4 percent since it reached its peak at 10,820 in 2011. Rochon said it’s not just USI’s enrollment that has decreased. “Historically, the enrollment trends for the state and the nation go on an upward trend,” he said. “If you look at the national trend right now, enrollment figures are definitely going down.” Noel Levitz was hired before enrollment dropped, but the consultants did think that the vice president of enrollment management was a good position to add. “Noel Levitz had endorsed the position – they indicated that we may have needed to use this position a while back,” Rochon said. An enrollment position has become common to universities in Indiana, said Stephen Spencer, English professor and VPEM coordinator. “It’s just a new way of thinking about the student experience more realistically than having an office of admission, an office of financial aid, an advising center – instead of having all those things being seen as distinct units, this is an effort to make all that student experience coherent,” Spencer said. The VPEM position brings together two major components, but it also takes into account of student’s best interest. In the fall, more than 2,600 students took a survey and answered questions about recruiting, advising and financial aid. “A lot of the initiatives come right out of that student feedback,” he said.
ENROLLMENT on Pg. 3
For every 100 students who start USI full-time
22
complete within
56
4 years
complete within
8 years
49
Local ventures to take off Friday
By RACHEL CHRISTIAN Staff writer Kristina Mobley, who works at Papa John’s in her hometown of Floyds Knobs, Ind., said she’s tired of cutting uneven pizza slices. So the senior public relations and marketing major came up with an idea - the Pizza Guide - a piece of plastic
complete within
6years
According to the Indiana Commission of Higher Education, the data reflects students who began their college career in 2005.
StartUp your engines
Mobley holds her “Pizza Guide.”
In this Issue
that fits over the pizza and serves as a guide so the pizza artist knows exactly where to cut. “It’s a perfect slice every time,” Mobley said. She worked on perfecting the idea with a couple of teammates in her entrepreneurship class last semester. They created a prototype and collected some data. They found there’s a real market for the Pizza Guide. “Of all the pizza places in town we talked to, two-thirds of them said they would buy it and use it in their stores,” she said. But there were still some kinks to work out. What kind of plastic would she use to make the Pizza Guides? Where would she get the financial backing she needed? Enter StartUp Weekend Evansville 3.0. The annual event gives local entrepreneurs the resources, feedback and opportunities they need to get their product off the ground. Participants are given 54 hours to pitch their ideas, team up, create a business model and work together to transform their concept into a profitable business venture. Mobley attended the event last year, which was hosted in the Romain College of Business, but only as a team member. This will be the first time she pitches her own idea.
“Last year really broadened my horizons and showed me what was possible,” she said. The schedule for StartUp Weekend will keep hundreds of participants busy. On Friday night, participants will have 60 seconds to pitch their initial idea to the crowd. The participants will introduce themselves, give a summary of the product and then state what help or what skills set they need. A vote will determine the best pitches and those ideas will progress. The people behind the remaining concepts will recruit developers, product managers, designers and marketers to help launch their startup. On Sunday night, the final pitches are presented as Powerpoints to a panel of judges. “Running a business is intense and sometimes chaotic,” said Shance Sizermore, program manager at G.A.G.E. and a judge at this year’s event. “Developing a business model under these pressures teaches valuable lessons about business startup practices.” Judges are looking for a team that can adapt and evolve over the weekend. “Fifty-four hours isn’t a lot of time, but the access to mentors and resources should produce major improvements from the original pitch,”
34 students cited at party By JAMES VAUGHN News editor Law enforcement officers cited 34 USI students for underage drinking when they busted a party on the northwest side of Evansville early Sunday morning. According to a news release, Evansville/ Vanderburgh County Central Dispatch received calls around midnight about a large underage drinking party and vehicles parked in the roadway in the 2700 block of Allens Lane. Excise police, along with the Vanderburgh County Sheriff’s Office and Indiana State Police, investigated the complaints and found 65 minors who had consumed alcohol inside the house and garage at 2727 Allens Lane. Nicholas Kempf, 23, a finance major at USI, was charged with aiding and inducing a minor to possess alcohol. Excise police cited 23 students and the sheriff’s office cited 11. All of the minors will appear in Vanderburgh Misdemeanor Court at a later date. One arrest was made. Andrew Hopf, 19, of Huntingburg, Ind., was jailed and charged with consumption of alcoholic beverages by a minor and resisting law enforcement. According to the spring 2014 student directory, Hopf is not a student at the university. Todd Ringle, the public information officer for the Indiana State Police, said an ISP trooper was present but made no arrests and cited no one.
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