Fast Facts
Last month (Oct. 28), The Trustees of Indiana University approved a plan to significantly reduce undergraduate tuition for summer session students beginning in 2012. The vote occurred during a special board meeting at the IU Bloomington campus. Beginning next summer, Indiana resident undergraduates enrolled at all of IU's seven campuses statewide will receive a 25 percent discount in tuition for courses taken in the summer. Nonresident undergraduate students will receive an equivalent dollar reduction in their tuition. For those students who take a full academic course load in the summer, the tuition reductions will result in a savings ranging from more than $700 at IU's regional campuses to about $1,000 at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis and $1,050 at IU Bloomington. IU President Michael A. McRobbie, who announced the plan on Oct. 24, told trustees that the new initiative will make an IU education more affordable, reduce the length of time it takes many students to earn a degree and allow for greater use of the university's facilities across the state.
Indiana University Press has launched its 2011 Friends Drive, seeking donations that will enable the press to keep pace with changing technology and take full advantage of new opportunities to publish the best possible works in a manner consistent with IU traditions. The annual fund drive, which continues through Dec. 31, is for the first time being supported by corporate sponsors -- French Lick Resort and FARMbloomington restaurant -- enabling IU Press to offer generous thank-you gifts to contributors. "University presses, as nonprofit organizations, publish important scholarship and works of high quality and cultural value both for the academy and the general public, but they are far from bestsellers. Most often they do not recover their costs," said Janet Rabinowitch, director of IU Press.
Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis Chancellor Charles R. Bantz highlighted the IUPUI IMPACT Campaign, which has pushed through the $1 billion mark on the way to the highest fundraising goal in IU history, during his State of the Campus address Nov. 1. The $1.25 billion campaign was publicly announced in October 2010. Through September 2011, the campaign raised $1.061 billion from more than 86,000 donors.
Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne's (IPFW's) Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs, George S. McClellan, is the recipient of the 2011 Dean Richard McKaig Award for Exemplary Leadership in Addressing High Risk Drinking. The award was presented to McClellan at the Indiana Collegiate Action Network's annual meeting last month in Indianapolis. The award is named after Richard McKaig, who was the Dean of Students at Indiana University Bloomington. Lisa Hutcheson, director of ICAN, said the criteria for the award ". . . are that the recipient has to be in a senior leadership position on a campus to show exemplary leadership on addressing high risk drinking through personal involvement and commitment."
Project #mobileEDU was unveiled at Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne (IPFW) in August by Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs William McKinney. The project allows a 60-member faculty cohort to explore how using iPads in their classrooms can help re-imagine IPFW's academic future. On November 9, the faculty from the Department of Accounting and Finance in the Richard T. Doermer School of Business received iPads, thanks to the generosity of local accounting firm BKD.
Indiana University economists presenting their annual forecast Nov. 3 expect that the national and state economies will expand somewhat more in 2012 but not enough to make much of a dent in unemployment, thus leading to a continued historically weak recovery. The Kelley School of Business' annual Business Outlook Panel expects the economy overall will expand by between 2.5 and 3 percent next year. Modestly rising output will lead to sluggish national employment growth of perhaps about 2 million jobs, which would allow the unemployment rate to decline only slightly to about 8.4 percent by next December. In Indiana, payroll growth should increase by 1.5 percent, with most sectors showing some growth. However, the Hoosier state shouldn't expect to reach pre-recession employment until 2014. The Indianapolis-Carmel metropolitan area should continue its slow recovery.
