CMYK
THE OFFICIAL STUDENT NEWSPAPER OF THE UNIVERSITY OF INDIANAPOLIS
VOL.
96
I S S UE 6
DECEMBER 13, 2017
UIndy reviews student life
reflector.uindy.edu
UIndy to increase tuition for 2018Students, faculty and staff have opportunities to share their thoughts on student life in various focus group meetings 2019 academic year By Zoë Berg EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
By Zoë Berg EDITOR-IN-CHIEF The Intellectual Life Review is an overarching program that is working on creating a vision for the University of Indianapolis over the next 10 to 15 years. One of the components of this program is the Student Life Review. The Office of Student Affairs is leading the process and hosting Student Life Review Focus Groups. About 75 focus groups are being held so that UIndy students, staff and faculty can attend, according to Vice President for Student and Campus Affairs and Dean of Students Kory Vitangeli. “We’re hoping to get everything from students that they both like [and] dislike, and what they would like to see UIndy transformed into,” Vitangeli said. “We’re getting all of that information. So we’re getting a broad perspective from graduate students, doctoral students, our School for Adult Learning students and our traditional undergraduate students, as well as faculty [and] staff.” The focus groups, held at different times throughout the afternoon and evening, are anonymous for participants, but the audio is recorded. At one of the sessions, Vitangeli explained that the university, sends the audio to be transcribed by a third-party outside of the university and all student identifiers are left out. Participants are labeled by their voices, for example: “Voice 1” or “Voice 2.” The questions asked at each session are the same, although the way they are asked and the follow-up questions and conversations are different for each session, depending on the responses of the participants. “We put some time and considerations into them [the questions] to try and make them applicable to everyone,” Assistant Dean of Students Julie Dannis said. “In the ones [focus groups] that I’ve led, sometimes discussions get a little off the questions that were being asked. But usually it’s good because they’re discussing something that we need to pay attention to. So I will let discussions go a little bit off track from the set amount of questions because I think the information is valuable.” Vitangeli and Dannis said there are topics that are mentioned repeatedly.
Photo by Zoë Berg
Students attend a Student Life Review Focus Group in UIndy Hall. The groups met in residence halls, classrooms and UIndy Hall over the last three weeks of the first semester. The focus groups last about 30 to 45 minutes and have a snack or a meal for participants. Vitangeli encourages all students to attend the upcoming groups. Dannis said this shows that those topics are meaningful, and she has begun to think about their importance. “Right now, we haven’t got a lot of the transcriptions back from the focus groups,” Vitangeli said. “But [in] the ones [focus groups] that I’ve participated in, students have had great ideas for ways that we can expand and broaden things like intramurals, support of athletics, looking at new student organizations, looking at ways we can have more themed floors like the honors and scholars floor on the fourth floor of Central [Hall], and just really broadening the scope of student life.” Other suggestions include better advertising for events, co-curricular activities and UIndy itself. Many students said they like UIndy because of the size, location and ability to connect with faculty and staff. Vitangeli’s weekly activity emails have often been a common discussion topic, as well as internships, residence halls, dining services and parking. Freshman political science major Danielle Merlo said her biggest concern was updating the dorms. She decided to come to the focus group after seeing an email sent by Vitangeli because she wanted to help the university. Merlo is optimistic about the university listening to the concerns she voiced. “I think if enough people mention the
same thing, they [university administrators] would definitely listen. Power comes in numbers,” Merlo said. “So I think that would be good. I hope that they listen because I think these are all pretty valid concerns.” Heather Jurey is studying healthcare consumer advocacy through the School for Adult Learning and feels differently. Jurey said she was expecting staff from SAL to be at the focus group, and she came to talk to them about a problem she was experiencing in the program. “For this, I think it was good. I mean for general knowledge, it works. But I don’t think it will change anything,” Jurey said. “Most of the time, when people from the department show up and hear you, they tend to make changes that way. But with this, it is no different than filling out a survey on paper, honestly.” Vitangeli said the focus groups will allow administration to get more information than they would from just a survey, like what they sent out earlier this year. “The survey will give us some general feedback, but with the focus group, you can really prod and hear from people individually about what they’re liking, dislike and [what they] want to see changed,” Vitangeli said. The student focus groups are held in residence halls, classrooms and UIndy Hall. While many of the faculty focus
groups are relatively small, the number of students who attend each focus group varies. “There were only four students who attended the discussion,” junior political science major Sarah King said about the session she attended. “So I think it helped a lot because none of us would have said as much as we did, or been as open, if it had been a big crowd.” In the larger focus groups, students may not have gotten to speak as much or answer each question in as much detail, but they were able to include more diverse topics of conversation. “Student Affairs is just one division. So I think if we don’t make a concerted effort to get out and get feedback and capture experiences from everybody on campus and at the university, we could easily miss some perspectives,” Dannis said. “...So if we’re not paying attention to the different populations of campus, that’s going to hurt us in the long-run... In order to be successful, everyone has to buy in to what we’re doing. So if people are having trouble in a certain area, let’s capture that, be aware of that and look for an improvement. If we’re doing something well, let’s celebrate that.” Vitangli said there will be more focus groups held in January and the Student Life Review will continue during the rest of the year.
The University of Indianapolis released a statement on Dec. 4 that announced undergraduate tuition will increase for the 2018-2019 academic year by 3.5 percent, or $488 per semester. This means that tuition will increase from $27,860 to $28,836 annually. UIndy President Robert Manuel said there are expenses that increase each year, such as electricity, heating and cooling, snow removal, bandwidth and insurance, that have to be considered when evaluating the costs for each year. He also said this increase includes maintaining the standard of living of faculty and staff, including increasing their salaries. “Each year we try to balance what we need to bring in with how we balance affordability, so students can continue to come here,” Manuel said. The price of room and board will increase with the standard double room rate increasing by $77 a semester, or 3 percent, putting it at $5,280 annually. Dining costs also will increase by 3 percent, and the 14-meal plan will be $5,008 annually, a $73 increase per semester. For the 2016-2017 academic year, UIndy was the second-lowest private institution in Indiana, according to a cost comparison provided by Manuel. He said that without factoring in the changes other universities likely will make to tuition, UIndy’s increase would be estimated at around $500 above the cost of the University of St. Francis, making UIndy the third-lowest priced. However, Manuel does expect all private institutions to raise their tuition. “There’s not a lot of variability in who’s going to do what up and down that scale, and I doubt anybody would hold flat or cut tuition,” Manuel said. “So we’re likely going to remain the second most affordable private institution in the state of Indiana as a result of these numbers.” Senior political science major and President of Indianapolis Student Government Jason Marshall said he thinks the increase will be one of the smallest in Indiana for private schools and thinks that UIndy still will be
> See Tuition on page 10
Press conference promotes Lifeline Law and Text to 911 By Maia Gibson NEWS EDITOR
Graphic by Juliana Rohrmoser
#GivingTuesday supports service trips By Juliana Rohrmoser ART DIRECTOR #GivingTuesday is the Tuesday after the Thanksgiving holiday in the United States. The movement started in 2012 as an international day of giving at the beginning of the holiday season. According to Director of Alumni Engagement Laura Teliha, UIndy has been a part of the movement for the past five years, growing from an awareness campaign to showcasing a partnership with different organizations that resonate with UIndy’s “education for service” motto.
“Every year [since 2015] we’ve partnered with a project or organization to really promote giving back,” Teliha said. “This way, donors are also helping the community this way through their gift to the university.” UIndy chose the 2017 theme “Wrap the World in Service” to feature service trips that students and faculty will partake in next year. According to Associate Vice President for Alumni Engagement Andrew Kocher, #GivingTuesday has previously focused on Wheeler Mission and Laurelwood Community, organizations with ties to UIndy. “There’s always been a tie to focus on
what our students and our faculty and our staff are doing with these organizations,” Kocher said. “It’s always been to highlight what we as an institution are doing giving back to the communities that we serve.” According to the UIndy #GivingTuesday website, one of the ways the donations collected during this year’s #GivingTuesday benefitted the Service Trips was by a “match,” where the first 300 donations given during the day would prompt a $10 donation to the General Service Trip Fund. This made an additional $3,000 available to support
> See Giving Tuesday on page 10
The final location of a series of press conferences promoting Indiana’s Lifeline Law and Text to 911, the University of Indianapolis welcomed community members, students, faculty and staff to the Schwitzer Student Center’s Engagement Center on Nov. 29. Government and campus officials spoke about the importance of the law and the Text to 911 program. Indiana’s Lifeline Law was passed in 2012 and “provides immunity for some alcohol-related offenses, subject to certain conditions, to underage Hoosiers who request medical assistance to someone in need,” according to the Lifeline Law’s website. The immunity is provided to individuals who are forthcoming and cooperate with police, and is only applicable toward the crimes of public intoxication, minor possession, consumption and transport. It has saved 43 lives that law enforcement officials are aware of in the last five years, according to State Senator Jim Merritt who authored the bill after meeting with six student body presidents who were interested in an alcohol amnesty law. “The first thought I had was, ‘This is an acknowledgement that kids consume alcohol under 21 on college campuses,’” Merritt said. “So I took about 30 days to think about this, because it was a very big deal. And after 30 days, those student body presidents brought a couple more.
We talked about it, and I agreed to author the bill...It is counterintuitive, but I decided we had to save lives.” The Lifeline Law has gained support from a more recent statewide program called Text to 911. The program allows individuals to text dispatchers in the event of an emergency. It started in June of 2016, according to Treasurer of the State and Chair of the Statewide 911 Board Kelly Mitchell. Text to 911 received about 200,000 text messages in its first year from a variety of people, including those who had trouble hearing and speaking and those who were afraid of being heard while calling for help, Mitchell said. On college campuses, Text to 911 makes it easier for students anonymously to get help for friends who are in need of medical attention as a result of drinking, Mitchell said. The program now covers all 94 college campuses in Indiana. “We really love our partnership with the Lifeline Law, because the other thing that we found is that people might feel peer-pressured not to call 911 when they need help for a friend,” Mitchell said. “If you’re at a party, there’s a good chance that everyone is going to say, ‘Don’t call, you’ll get us in trouble.’ But you can text, because everyone is always looking at their phone. Everybody. So texting for help has been a really valuable addition.” UIndy Chief of Police David Selby said that initiatives such as the Lifeline Law and Text to 911 fit in with a common
> See Press on page 3