In this Issue Vol. 43 Issue 26
What’s next? pg. 7
Bless My Souls pg. 5
THE
Thursday, March 28, 2013
SHIELD www.usishield.com
President’s evaluation moves forward
FILE PHOTO/The Shield
Students sign a pledge to fight against sexual assault against women at the 2012 Walk a Mile in Her Shoes event.
By JESSIE HELLMANN News editor The Board of Trustees took its first step in USI President Linda Bennett’s tenure evaluation Tuesday night in a way that is entirely new to the university. This is the first time an outside firm helped with a presidential evaluation, but the trustees thought it was necessary because the university had never formed a formal evaluation policy. Stephen Portch, from the firm PapAs any president pas Consulting Group, Inc., confaces, she is torn ducted the interwith her time. I views and focus groups that took know there are course over a day times when she and a half. The firm is wishes she had based out of an extra 24 hours Palm Beach Gardens, Fla., and in a day to do has worked on what she feels she reforming presidential evaluation needs to do. processes with schools such as -Mary Hupfer Eastern Kentucky Assistant Vice President University and for Business Affairs The College of New Jersey. “Ironically almost everyone got evaluated formally except the president, and (the board) started to look around for best practices,” Portch said. “We got into conversation, and they’ve now adopted a policy which calls for an annual evaluation by the board of the president.” Before this year, none of USI’s three presidents have ever had a comprehensive, or a “360,” evaluation. He said the informal evaluation, which occurs annually, will be primarily conducted by the board, but every few years an outside consultant will be brought in. “No less than every five years, but probably a little sooner, (the board) will conduct what’s called a comprehensive evaluation where they would engage someone like myself to come in and conduct EVALUATION on Pg. 3
Men walk to end violence against women By JESSICA STALLINGS Staff writer
FILE PHOTO/The Shield
Participants raise their signs in protest of violence against women while wearing high heels and T-shirts for the 2012 Walk a Mile in Her Shoes event.
Tyler Pipes has his own pair of high heels prepared for this year’s Walk a Mile in Her Shoes event. “They’ll hopefully show off my legs,” Pipes, senior kinesiology and sports management major, said. “Unfortunately, we haven’t had too much sun to work on my tan, but the heels will make up for it.” On April 9, Albion Fellows Bacon Center and USI will hold the seventh annual Walk a Mile in Her Shoes event. This event is an international men’s march to stop rape, sexual assault and gender violence. Albion Fellows Bacon Center is a nonprofit agency that serves victims of domestic and sexual violence. The center provides emergency shelter, a 24-hour crisis line, short-term individual crisis, counseling, support groups, and legal and medical advocacy to victims and their friends and family. Pipes said the more people that become informed of the many ways to prevent these situations as well as how to overcome them, the more likely these terrible things will be WALK A MILE on Pg. 3
Visitor, Conference Centers a possibility Plans for new campus buildings in early stages By JAMES VAUGHN Staff writer If university donors give the university enough money, a Visitor Center and a Conference Center could be added to USI’s campus. Vice President for Finance and Administration Mark Rozewski said construction could start years from now as they are in the very early stages of planning.
He said he doesn’t know for certain who the donors are, but he has an idea. “If it’s not completely donorfunded, it won’t be built,” Rozewski said. He said the university is not spending any money on the project because it’s not a priority. Core academic projects, such as renovating the Biology Department, are more important. “Our money is really hard to come by,” Rozewski said. “It’s really just the core academic stuff that needs to be done with state dollars.” He projected the Visitor Center to cost around $2 million and the Conference Center to cost around $5 million. The Conference Center, which will span about 15,000 square feet, has an unconfirmed site
The Shield is a designated public forum.
near Reflection Lake, he said. There are no plans for the location of a 5,000-square-foot Visitor Center yet. “Each will have their own life cycle,” Rozewski said. “Nothing is firm yet.” He said most universities have a Visitor Center for prospective students and their families. “We only have the lobby of the Orr (Center), which is nice, but it’s not standard for creating a good first impression,” Rozewski said. Stephen Helfrich, director of facility operations and planning, presented the project at the March 7 Board of Trustees meeting. He said it’s in the earliest stage of design. “In our business, we call it the conceptual phase,” he said.
Helfrich said it would take about a year to fully design the buildings. If they weren’t on a donor schedule, they could have construction going as early as next summer. Sophomore communication studies major Morgan Watkins said it sounds like a great idea as long as the building costs do not affect the price she pays for tuition. “I don’t know if we need it right now, but USI is expanding at a fast rate,” she said. “We’re going to need it in the future.” Watkins doesn’t agree that renovating the Biology Department should be a priority. “I think that university money should go toward something that will benefit everyone and not just one department,” she said.
The students publication of the University of Southern Indiana
Conference and Visitor Center • • •
Conceptual phase Completely donor funded Will take a year to completely design both of them
Conference Center • 15,000 sq. ft • $5 million • Unconfirmed site by Reflection Lake Visitor Center • 5,000 sq. ft • $2 million • No site in mind
Additional Copies of The Shield are 25 cents