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President, Provost Forum focuses on budgetary concerns

Ryan Kamphuis
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

Between the recently announced
475% tuition increase and the move to NCAA
Division Three athletics, there are a lot of cone
troversial moves the university has recently
made, that is garnering buzz within the stue
dent body

Students, faculty, and staff all came
to the Hermann Hall ballroom on Thursday
February 28, during the lunch hour for the
Spring 2013 President and Provost Forum in
order to ask question about these recent deci
sions Organized by the Student Government
Association, the Forum aimed to increase the
transparency of HT’s administration by giving
students an hour when they could ask Presi
dent John Anderson, and Provost Alan Cramb
any questions they could think of regarding
the university And ask they did

Before taking any questions, Presi
dent Anderson took the floor to talk about
the recentlyeformed Diversity Committee that
had been created Anderson explained that the
university should be a place where, “diversity is
accepted, and civility is expected,’ ' and that this
committee could help achieve this by creating
an environment that is inclusive and respect,
full Both the President and the Provost sit on
this committee, and described the committee’s
current plan of creating a list of eight to 10
rules of behavior that will promote civility and
respect on campus Anderson read off a few of
these rules, which included, “ask rather than
assume," “use please and thank you," and, “give
people the benefit of the doubt?’ Anderson also

stressed the importance of using faceetoeface
communication as much as possible, limiting
electronic communication, and attempting to
always talk faceetoeface when one has to speak
about something negativel

After this, the President and Prof
vost began to take questions that had been
collected for several days by SGA through a
Google Form The first question asked what
the school was doing to make life more enjoy,
able for commuter studentsl President Andere
son brought up the recent opening of the BOG
as the commuter lounge before deferring the
question to Dean of Students Katie Stetzl Stetz
talked about how the BOG was a big step in
making campus more enjoyable for commute
ers, but that more work should be done She
talked about an upcoming meeting she had
with the Commuter Student Association to ad,
dress ways that the school could help commute
er studentsl Provost Cramb then took to the
floor to talk about steps the school was mak
ing to improve the HT shuttle bus, which in,
cluded optimizing the schedule, and ensuring
that drives held to the schedule more strictly
Cramb then finally implored commuter stue
dents to work with Dean Stetz if they have any
ideas on how to make their lives easier

With that question answered, all
of the forum’s questions turned to the topic
of the recently announced 475% tuition in,
crease The first question regarding this asked
why their was a tuition hike, especially when
most scholarships don’t increase in value as
tuition is increased Anderson explained that
60% of HT’s revenue comes from tuition, and

 

 

that from a pure numbers sense, tuition has
to increase because the university’s expenses
increase every years The President went on to
explain that increasing tuition makes it pose
sible to improve the university, which is in the
best interest of students Anderson spoke of
the many new academic and athletic programs
at HT which needed to be funded, the 43 new
faculty that were hired last year that needed to
be paid, and the maintenance of facilities that
needed to be done He also explained that since
HT did not have a sizable endowment, the only
real way to raise the money to make these ime
provements was through tuition increases An,
derson closed his statement by explaining that
this tuition increase has been the smallest in
his time as President of HT, and that his goal is
to make the university better, which should be
all of our goals, and that a tuition increase has
to happen to make this happen

A followeup question was then
asked by a forum attendee, who asked what
the school was doing to add more students,
which would increase the amount of revenue
the school had access to Provost Cramb used
this as an opportunity to talk about the uni,
versity’s efforts to add 1,000 students to the
undergraduate population by broadening the
reach of HT and marketing how exciting HT
is Cramb talked about the recent introduction
of coeterminal degrees, which allow an under,
graduate student to graduate with a Master’s
degree, as one way of doing this Cramb also
talked about the school’s efforts to increase the
foureyear graduation rate

Another question about the tuition

hike was then posed, this time asking why,
with the increase in tuition, things that benefit
a small number of people were being priorie
tized over things that benefited everyonel Ale
most immediately after reading the question,
President Anderson asked if this question was
referring to the university’s plans to put artie
ficial turf on HT’s soccer field, which caused
the room to laugh Anderson explained that by
turfing the field, the whole field would be able
to be used much more often, which would ben
efit all HT students It could be used for much
longer every year, and would be able to be used
by intramural activities, ROTC, and the com,
munity, as opposed to just the varsity soccer
teams Anderson also explained that this deci
sion essentially paid for itself, due to the fact
that $500,000 was spent every year to maintain
the existing grass field, and that the upkeep
costs for artificial turf were a third of that An,
derson then went on to say that he could not
think of anything else that could possibly be
used as an example of the school prioritizing
things that benefitted the few
With that question answered, the
President and Provost went on to answering
a question that asked how students could get
involved with the creation of HT’s budget The
President deferred this question to Provost
Cramb, who said that if students were to as,
sist in making HT’s budget, they should begin
thinking in the long term Cramb explained
that most budgeting decisions were made con,
sidering the next several years, and that very
few decisions were shorteterm ones He also
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P170 ms by Kevin Zheng