LIFe & Arts • PAGE 7
sPOrts • PAGE 5
summer festivals offer variety
sooners to close out regular season
Kanye West (shown left) and other musicians headline music festivals across the country this summer. Read The Daily’s festival preview.
Keilani Ricketts (shown right) and the OU softball team will end regular-season play when they host the Iowa State Cyclones on Saturday and Sunday in Norman.
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Ou to cut retirement benefits university tries to improve finances after receiving low credit rating NICHOLAS HARRISON The Oklahoma Daily
OU administrators plan to cut faculty and staff retirement benefits in an attempt to improve the university’s financial condition, according to a report from a credit-rating company. Fitch Ratings assigned OU an “AA” credit rating
with a negative outlook — citing “diminished financial flexibility, a high debt burden and constrained liquidity relative to debt and expenses” as the reasons for its evaluation. Credit-rating agencies like Fitch provide investors with independent assessments of the risks of default on bonds and other financial instruments issued by private companies and government
university debt Current debt: $697.6 million Annual interest: $58.6 million budget used for interest: 8% new debt planned in 2011: $75 million Additional annual cost: $4.9 million
SEE CUTS PAGE 2
Summer school schedule changed university switches to block scheduling, finds new funding options for summer programs JARED RADER RENEÉ SELANDERS
eNGINeers sHOW OFF PrOJects
The Oklahoma Daily
A 17-percent decrease in summer enrollment numbers since 2007 has prompted university officials to redesign the way the term is funded and scheduled in order to boost student registration in summer 2011. In an attempt to improve enrollment, Nick Hathaway, OU executive vice president and Administration and Finance vice president, and Nancy Mergler, senior vice president and provost, established the Summer Session Steering Committee, which is tasked with creating new strategies to increase summer enrollment. The committee’s members are Hathaway, Mergler, Matt SEE SUMMER PAGE 3
niCholas harrison/the Daily
Mechanical engineering junior Mark Garcia rides a bicycle Thursday in front of Felgar Hall. Garcia and a team of engineering students designed the bicycle for their capstone project. The engineering fair was an opportunity for seniors and juniors taking the capstone class to show off their projects.
brief
Faculty senate to appoint new leaders at final spring meeting the ou Faculty senate will appoint new leadership and propose a resolution to increase ou employees’ health and wellness at its end-of-semester meeting. economics professor georgia kosmopoulou will become the new chairwoman, and members will elect at-large members, a secretary and chair-elect for next year, according to the meeting agenda. the faculty also will ask ou to commit more time to improving employee health because of increasing costs and proven benefits, according to the resolution. specifically, senate members want an annual wellness report, a smoke-free campus, incentives for healthy eating and more healthful foods on campus. other items on the agenda include a recognition of departing senators, announcements about Bike to work Day and a summary of the year’s work by the Faculty senate speakers service. — Daily staff reports
Cash offered for unwanted books campus, Norman locations take donations for six organizations, buying books back for cash HILLARY MCLAIN
The Oklahoma Daily
Students stuck with unwanted textbooks have a variety of options, including donating them to raise money for AIDS victims and selling them back to local textbook retailers. Austin Conwell, multidisciplinary studies junior, will be taking textbook and cash donations for the CARE for AIDS organization. Conwell will have tables set up taking donations from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. during finals week on the South Oval and the Walker-Adams Mall. If students donate three books they will receive an American Apparel T-shirt. Conwell said he will donate all money raised from the event to help Kenyans with the disease.
Better World Books also has donation centers set up in the Honors Library, Hester Hall’s international and area studies office and in the residence halls. Donations made to this organization will be distubuted among five major partners: Books for Africa, Invisible Children, Room to Read, Worldfund and the National Center for Family Literacy. For students who want cash for their textbooks, booksellers around Norman are opening up their highest payback amounts this week through finals week. Ratcliffe’s Textbooks, Boomer Book Co., and Sooner Textbooks all opened up for buybacks on Monday. Ratcliffe’s supervisor Jason Hale said they will try to buy back anything. “This week we will be paying more for certain titles we know will be used again next year,” Hale SEE BOOKS PAGE 3
Dale Hall Tower staff to relocate construction to displace personnel up to 15 months KATHLEEN EVANS The Oklahoma Daily
Faculty and staff in Dale Hall Tower will have to relocate on campus for 15 months because of construction, OU officials said. Departments within the tower include history, philosophy, psychology, anthropology and political science. Some departments will move to the South Base buildings on Constitution Street near the golf course, Facilities Management
A LOOk At WHAt’s ON Visit the news section to read about a memorial fellowship established in memory of a College of Law professor
Director Brian Ellis said. Professors have known about the move since fall, but moving a department is an endeavor, history chairman Robertt Griswold said. “My colleagues have been packing up their offices, some of which have been in them for 30 years now,” Griswold said. Others, such as psychology professors, will take up spaces left behind in the old chemistry building and the Physical Sciences Center when the chemistry department moved out, psychology chairman Jorge Mendoza said. OU has been helpful throughout
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the process and will have personnel do the physical moving, Griswold said. Officials have been quick with answering questions and coordinating everything, Mendoza said. However, logistics are somewhat uncertain, especially since some of the rooms still have furniture and things left behind, Mendoza said. “It’s not going to be fun for anybody, but, you know, we’re trying to keep a good attitude and hope for the best,” philosophy chairwoman Susan Vehik said. “We want to make it the best for the students.”
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UOSA offers freshmen internship program Ou Freshman council will help introduce new sooners to uOsA, member says SARAH MARTIN
The Oklahoma Daily
A new UOSA initiative will give University College freshmen leadership opportunities and offer them lower level experience in student government. The OU Freshman Council is a new program under all branches of UOSA that will introduce freshmen to UOSA, teach freshmen leadership skills and give them a mentor, said Rainey Sewell, communication sophomore and UOSA member. University College freshman Ranya Forgotson was selected by UOSA president Hannah Morris as nominee chair of the council, a selection which must be confirmed by UOSA’s legislative branch when it resumes in the fall. Forgotson has been developing the freshman council throughout the semester with Sewell and political science senior Jason Robison. Forgotson has established that members of the council will intern for one semester with a member of the executive branch and one semester with a member of Undergraduate Student Congress, Forgotson said. Undergraduate Student Congress vice chair and secretary and executive branch directors are among those who will have interns, Forgotson said. “I think that it will make our student government more efficient … if we start our freshmen SEE UOSA PAGE 3
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