Likins Recommends Tuition Increase - UANEWS.org site

Monday, 03 February 2003

In keeping with the tuition setting process mandated by law and by ABOR policy, University of Arizona President Peter Likins announced that he will recommend a tuition increase of $1,000 or 39.9 percent for undergraduate resident students and an increase of $1,250 or 11.3 percent for undergraduate nonresident students. He also is recommending a tuition increase of $1,250 or 49.8 percent for graduate resident students and an increase of $1,500 or 13.6 percent, for graduate nonresidents. Tuition rates for 2003-04 will be set by the Board of Regents at its meeting on March 6.

"It is clear that a large share of the revenues theoretically generated by tuition increases would be returned to our students to ease the burdens of tuition payment, " said Likins. "More than 5,000 of our neediest Arizona resident undergraduates and all of our Graduate Teaching Assistants would be unharmed by this tuition increase, and for many others the tuition increase would be mitigated as well."

Proposed Tuition Increases
President Likins will recommend the following tuition rates to the Arizona Board of Regents:

Full-time
Fall 2002 Tuition Increase Full-time
Fall 2003
Resident Undergraduate $2,508 $1,000 $3,508
Non-resident Undergraduate 11,028 1,250 12,278
Resident Graduate 2,508 1,250 3,758
Non-resident Graduate 11,028 1,500 12,528
College of Medicine 10,649 909 11,483

Financial Aid in Relation to Tuition Increases
Although there are various ways of looking at the additional revenue generated by recommended tuition increases, the University of Arizona is returning at least 50 percent of the new tuition revenue to students in the form of financial aid.

Undergraduate Financial Aid Increment
$4,500,000 Awards (cash or waivers) to Resident Pell Grant Recipients with need unmet by gift aid. (More than 5,000 students are left unharmed by this tuition increase.)
$2,800,000 Awards (cash or waivers) to other needy undergraduates.
$4,200,000 Awards (cash or waivers) based on merit. (Historically, about one-third of these students are needy.)
$11,500,000 Total incremental aid for undergraduates

Graduate Financial Assistance
$1,200,000 Increase Graduate Teaching Assistant (GTA) tuition waivers from 25 percent to 50 percent for full-time and from 12.5 percent to 25 percent for half-time.
$1,400,000 Additional funds to hold all GTAs unharmed by tuition increases and assist Principle Investigators (PIs) in financing tuition waivers for Graduate Research Assistants (GRAs) (25 percent for half-time GRAs this year; 50 percent next year.)
$2,600,000 Total incremental aid for graduates

Proposed Program Fees
In addition to increases in tuition, President Likins will ask the Board of Regents to approve the following new or increased special program fees. The University of Arizona's practice is to set aside approximately 15 percent of program fees for financial aid.

M.A. in Information Resources and Library Science
The President and Provost have called for a reorganization proposal for the School of Information Resources and Library Science (SIRLS). The reorganization proposal will have two components: 1) a plan for program elimination and 2) an alternative strategy for making SIRLS largely self-sufficient. In relationship to the latter, we are establishing a place holder for a differential fee request for SIRLS. A special program fee of $100 per credit hour for resident students and $400 per credit hour for non-resident students, beginning in fall 2003.

We have explored the national marketplace for peer programs and conclude that the proposed increase would place resident student tuition and fees below the average of peer school rates. The proposed program fees have been vetted with a large group of library directors and representatives program fee. The leadership of SIRLS is now in conversation with SIRLS students of the Arizona Library Association and they understand the necessity for imposing a program fee. In earlier dialogue with the LSO (student government organization) there was general agreement that a program fee is needed to hire faculty and generally improve SIRLS.

President Likins is also recommending the following specific program fees within the program fee ranges approved by the Board of Regents in April 2002.

M.B.A. & Related Professional Master's Degrees
The Board has already approved for these programs a range of $8,000 to $15,000. The approved fee for AY 2002-2003 for resident and non-resident students is $9,000. The President will be proposing an increase at the April ABOR meeting. The fee proposed will be well within the range previously approved.

The presidents of Arizona's public universities are disclosing proposed tuition increases in advance of the ABOR tuition hearing scheduled for Thursday Feb. 27 from 4:30 to 7 p.m.

Students are encouraged to share their views at the UA Town Hall. The ABOR tuition hearings are atinteractive sites that will allow students at all three universities to participate simultaneously. The following UA sites are:

UA Main Campus: Harvill 211
UA South Sierra Vista Room 205
UA Douglas Room 127


The tuition hearing will be telecast on several cable outlets and over the Internet.

Cox Cable Channel 76
People's Choice Channel 46
UA Dorm TV Channel 76
Cox Cable Channel 7 Sierra Vista

More information about the ABOR tuition hearing is available from the ABOR office. Call (602) 229-2543 or visit the ABOR website.

In addition to disclosing recommended increases, the ABOR tuition policy also requires the Board to place notice of the hearings in newspapers throughout the state. Regents must also take a roll call vote on tuition increases.

 
Library school should be saved By Wildcat Opinions Board
Arizona Daily Wildcat on Monday February 17, 2003

State librarians from 21 western states are concerned, and they have reason to be.

Since the administration’s Jan. 14 announcement of proposed cuts to the university, the library community has taken action to save their school.

President Pete Likins and Provost George Davis made the Focused Excellence criteria clear on Jan. 14, stating educational excellence, research and creative excellence, student demand, vital public impact, revenue generation and interdisciplinary need were “the touchstones for evaluating mission centrality and quality.”

If these were the actual requirements, it seems the school would get some more attention — not just a potential spot on the cutting board.

The school is a valuable part of the university and is the only library school in the state.

Of course, not many are arguing that. But Likins wants to see the school become financially self-sufficient, and so library sciences made its way onto the UA’s list of potential cuts.

Mostly likely, the school will survive. Hopefully it will be merged into a college with the departments of communication, journalism, and, who knows, maybe even media arts. This would be a valuable, information-centered college, serving as a magnet for research and outside donations.

But UA’s approach to making the school financially self-sufficient is skewed.

Rather than helping the school move in the direction of becoming reliant on its own funds, the university threatened expulsion.

And this isn’t the first time the college has acted to save their program.

In a review process by the UA Strategic Planning and Budget Advisory Committee, the library sciences undergraduate program was hand-selected for proposed elimination. This was not last year, nor under the Likins administration. Let’s talk 1994.

In a horrible case of deja-vu, library sciences has again been targeted.

“I think we need to demonstrate to the campus that graduates from this program are desperately needed,” Carla Stoffle, dean of libraries, said recently, pointing to a national librarian shortage.

She’s right, and the university administration probably doesn’t disagree with the importance of the library school.

So why not assist library sciences in relying on its own funds in UA’s hard budgetary times, rather than running at it with a crowbar?

The university can’t sell itself as a major Research I institution and then treat librarians — a very diverse group of researchers — like second-class citizens, particularly in this age of e-information.

The proposal may have just been a political move to make library sciences independent, but it sends an embarrassing political message about the importance of research and academics.

Mostly likely, the library school will be saved, but why threaten it with expulsion?

 
Librarians unite to save their school
By Keren G. Raz Arizona Daily Wildcat on Thursday February 13, 2003

Kathy Fox works every day encouraging children to read. Now, Fox is speaking out, encouraging the Tucson community to support UA’s School of Information Resources and Library Science.

Images of librarians tiptoeing across the library shushing students are “old school,” said the librarian at Gale Elementary School.

“That’s an old stereotype,” she said. “I’m a fairly political person, so I really do a lot of activism for the library.”

And now with the School of Information Resources and Library Science on the cutting block, the soft-spoken public school librarian has become politically active in the campaign to save SIRLS.

Fox is speaking out in support of SIRLS, along with the many other librarians nationwide who are concerned that the elimination of SIRLS would be disastrous for America’s library systems.

Last month, administrators announced that they would consider eliminating SIRLS as part of the Focused Excellence initiative.

Likins said that unless SIRLS could become financially self-sufficient, administrators could not justify draining resources away from other departments in the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences in order to sustain the growth it needs to maintain accreditation.

At first, students and alumni took to the streets to protest the proposals. They attended press conferences wearing “SAVE SIRLS” stickers on their chests, and they rallied before a campus town hall, shouting slogans and holding signs to protest the proposed elimination.

But after President Pete Likins told them they needed plans and not slogans, they softened their voices and got to work behind the scenes.

“We’re working within the system,” said Lisa Bunker, SIRLS alumna who now chairs the SAVE SIRLS steering committee.

Already, SIRLS has been in contact with the director of the Tucson public library, the director of the Phoenix public library, the state librarian, the editor of the American Library Association newsletter, the editor of the Library Journal, local school librarians and Congressman Raul Grijalva (D-Tucson), said director of SIRLS Brook Sheldon.

Grijalva said he wrote a letter to Likins asking him to designate the survival of SIRLS as a priority.

“If it’s eliminated, someone will be having a conversation in five to 10 years about the need for library schools,” he said.

Grijalva said he not only plans to follow up with Likins later this month, but he will bring the issue up in his next meeting with Democratic Gov. Janet Napolitano.

While Grijalva gives SIRLS some political clout, Fox is helping SIRLS take its campaign to the communities, networking with teachers and parents.

“I’m just getting the word out to people,” she said.

Librarians like Fox have been focusing on getting information out about their concerns that the elimination of the only library science school in the Rocky Mountain region could set back a profession already struggling with a shortage of librarians.

During a Library Day conference last month, the proposal to eliminate SIRLS was addressed to over 300 people, said state librarian Gladys Ann Wells.

“I think it’s tragic,” Wells said. “All state librarians from 21 Western states are concerned.”

It is estimated that one out of four librarians will retire in the next six years with few new librarians to replace them, and according to data compiled by SIRLS, 4,000 jobs were posted last year on the SIRLS Web site to attract a graduating class of 87 students.

The American Library Association, the organization responsible for accrediting SIRLS, is also taking an active step to support the school.

Only a few days after Likins held a press conference to formally announce his list of proposed program eliminations, the American Library Association also wrote up a resolution to Likins and the Arizona Board of Regents.

Pointing to the national shortage of librarians and the diversity of the program, the American Library Association council declared its support for SIRLS and stressed the importance of the school’s survival.

While Likins said that he admires the support for SIRLS and the ideas being sent to him in the letters, he also said that the survival of SIRLS rests primarily on whether the school can become self-sufficient.

“It boils down to financial planning,” he said. “We need a financial plan to manage that growth without sucking resources from other departments.”

With so much relying on financial self-sufficiency, Sheldon has begun putting together a financial plan that will ensure the school’s survival.

Next month, administrators will ask the Regents to approve a program fee of $100 per credit hour for in-state students and $400 per credit hour for out-of-state students.

The fee is the central part of a plan that will generate enough revenue for SIRLS to support all future growth, Sheldon said.

The business plan, if approved by administrators, will bring in enough money so that SIRLS will not receive funding from the university to supplement its $625,000 allocation, Sheldon said.

To complement the business plan, a SAVE SIRLS steering committee has been formed to kick off the most aggressive fundraising campaign in the school’s history for an endowed professorship, Bunker said.

The steering committee has planned a fundraising dinner with author J.A. Jance that will cost $100 per plate.

Fox said there’s no doubt that people will pay the price for dinner.

“While I wouldn’t do it for J.A. Jance, I’d do it to save the school,” she said.

Fox believes that it is worth every penny to make a donation to help SIRLS. Other librarians and organizations agree and continue to explore ways to financially assist the school.

Wells said she has already pledged federal money to Likins to help fund an assistant professorship and a set of scholarships for SIRLS.

Usually, federal money goes to the public libraries in the form of grants, but all the directors of Tucson’s public libraries agreed to pledge that money to SIRLS.

They need librarians more than they need grants, Wells said.

Also, a foundation set up in honor of former SIRLS professor Arnulfo Trejo has committed $20,000 towards an endowment, Sheldon said.

And the editor of the American Library Association’s newsletter will devote the entirety of the next newsletter to SIRLS and its struggle to survive, Sheldon said.

In the newsletter, he will challenge all readers to match his $500 donation to SIRLS.

“It’s heartwarming to see people doing this out of loyalty to SIRLS,” Sheldon said. “The rewards will be the success of the program.”

Librarian Shortage (insert box in article)
· An estimated 58 percent of professional librarians will reach the age of 65 between 2005 and 2019.
· One out of four librarians will retire in the next 6 years
· Each year, thousands of jobs go unfilled. As an example, SIRLS graduated 87 students last year.
· There are 125,152 professional librarians in the United States. Of these, less than 3 percent are Hispanic, and Native Americans make up less than .6 percent.