Jan. 9 by MediaOCU

THE CAMPUS `

January 9, 2019 – Volume 112 Issue 13

Tuition to increase for first time in five years Emily Wollenberg

ASSOCIATE EDITOR

University officials increased tuition and fees for the first time in five years, and students are unhappy about it. President Martha Burger sent a universitywide email Dec. 20, informing students of the finalization of tuition and fees for the 2019-20 academic year. “Undergraduate tuition will increase 3 percent beginning with the Summer 2019 term. This increase amounts to $409 per semester for block tuition,” according to the email. “Graduate, doctorate, law, physician assistant, RN-BSN, and adult degree completion tuition will remain the same.” Fee changes for 2019-20 are: - An increase of $25 per credit hour with the exception of the physician assistant program. - A 3 percent increase in housing fees. - A 5 percent increase for student meal plans, as outlined in the contract with OCU’s food service provider. The changes amount to about a $400-700 per year increase for graduate, law and doctoral students, and a $2,000 per year increase for undergraduate students with a meal plan who live on campus. “A tuition increase is always a difficult decision to make and we spent a great deal of time analyzing and discussing our best options,” the email reads. Matthew Reindl, music theater senior, posted on the OCU Facebook page about the increase, addressing university officials. “I think the students are owed a deeper explanation about the tuition increase. What is this money being designated to? Why is it necessary? Cause if the money is going towards paying our professors more or improving our facilities, great. But I want to make sure it’s not just going into some executives pocket,” he wrote in the post. The post received more than 90 likes and 20 comments from students and alumni. Reindl said, even though the increase won’t affect him as a senior, he thought he should speak out about it. “I felt like it was my duty to speak up on behalf of the student body,” he said. “I wanted to do it publicly to give other students the chance to give their input and not just have the issue brushed aside. And, given the reaction, a lot of other people clearly agreed.” Aaron Bates, acting sophomore, said he is frustrated by the limited communication from university officials. “I understand, in the grand scheme of things, sometimes prices just have to go up,” Bates said. “There are times where there’s no avoiding that. But what really upset me was the entire lack of any heads up that a tuition raise may be coming.” Bates said he didn’t appreciate the lack of explanation about the purpose of the increase and that officals responded with vague answers to the frustrated Facebook comments on Reindl’s post. “If it’s an increase of pay to our professors that I’d wager many students think they deserve, then tell us,” he said. “If it’s possibly attempting to truly fix security at Cokes so someone can’t just stick their hand through the pedestrian gate and hit the exit button to open the gate, then tell us.” The purpose of the increase is so OCU can continue to offer all of the services it offers and to keep up with rising costs, said Kevin Windholz, vice president for enrollment management and university communications. “Naturally, the costs associated with the services we provide go up every year, just like things do,” he said. Tuition hasn’t increased at OCU since 2014, he said. “That’s a lot of years when the costs went up, but we have not

increased our base revenue with it,” Windholz said. Windholz said he doesn’t think the increase is significant compared to what it could have been. “You will find a lot of universities that go up 3 to 5 percent every year. Really, it could have been much more significant than that,” he said. Bates said he knows people who have had to leave the school, even after working for scholarships and requesting financial aid. He said he fears more students will be forced to do so after the increase. University officials are offering scholarship options for students who have financial concerns about the increase. “They would have to speak with their financial aid counselor, and we encourage them to do so,” Windholz said. “If it’s deemed that, based upon student need, based on the financial information of the student, that they need some sort of scholarship, that is something that we are prepared to do.” Dr. Beth Fleming, professor of musicology and Faculty Senate member said she was not informed of the increase until the last day of class of the fall semester during a Faculty Senate meeting. Fleming said she sees both sides of the tuition increase. “It’s one of those things where it’s hard on everyone to think about doing these types of things, but it’s also something that I’m sure they really used a lot of good sense and thoughtfulness when they did finally decide to do it,” she said. “Part of me says that raising tuition is a bad thing, but part of me says that it’s a good thing because maybe it will help bolster up some stuff that’s been waiting to get done because we didn’t have any raises.” Fleming said faculty discussed some of the issues caused by a lack of money. “In Faculty Senate this past semester, we talked about the fact that faculty salaries and benefits are low, especially for working in the state of Oklahoma,” she said. Students want to know what they’re paying for, Reindl said. “My whole thing is, they had to come up with a plan and a budget to get the numbers they did for the increase. They should already know where this money is going. It’s been budgeted for. So, if they’re not doing anything sketchy with it, I don’t see why releasing a breakdown would be an issue,” Reindl said. “If it’s going

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toward improving the student experience as they said, they should have nothing to worry about.” Windholz said the increase is to sustain an operational budget for the university. “All of our budgets are in one pot. The exact same amount of revenue that generates budgets for housing is the exact same amount of revenues that generates budgets for the library or for campus technology,” Windholz said. “It’s to keep up with costs to keep offering the services that we’ve always offered.” Windholz said he could not provide information about what the money is specifically being used for. “It all comes down to the whole budget. It’s about maintaining that operational budget to keep up with rising costs,” he said. Reindl said he thinks the email was strategically sent during Winter Break to create less pushback from students. He said it also could have been so students could communicate with their parents about the increase, but other students who commented on his Facebook post agreed with his first thought. “They haven’t exactly established trust with the student body surrounding this issue,” he said. The announcement about the increase was made during Winter Break because that was when officials reached a budgetary agreement, Windholz said. “We weren’t certain until we got halfway through the fiscal year that this was what we were going to pursue. There was nothing specific about the time period. It was just by chance,” he said. Jake Fox, kinesiology and physical education alumnus, said tuition increases are necessary at a university. “Tuition will increase. It’s going to happen,” he said. “While I was at OCU, the tuition and fees went up every single year. It wasn’t until my senior year where they made it so each student is locked into a single rate for tuition for the four years they were there.” Windholz said the classes that entered OCU under the locked rate policy came to the school in 2013-2014 and have since graduated. He said officials changed the policy because, with a locked rate, they could never increase tuition to keep up with rising costs. “If you lock the rate, you don’t have an opportunity to ever increase revenue if you’re in a position where you need to,” he said. Fox said transparency is important with a tuition increase. “I do think the students have a right to know why something increases. OCU is already super expensive,” he said. “Having to provide for myself and pay for everything in school by myself with the help of an athletic scholarship that barely put a dent in the cost was very hard. I had to make lots of sacrifices to be able to attend.” Jordan Tarter, Student Government Association president and English senior, said she is working to create a forum with university officials for students to attend and to ask questions about the increase. She said she has been unable to get into contact with President Burger because of the holidays. “I’m very adamant in trying to set this up so that students can get a more direct understanding as to why these tuition changes were made. I’ve also posted the emails of our VP for Enrollment Management and our CFO on social media so that students can email them directly with any questions and concerns they have,” Tarter said. Tarter will continue to be in contact with university officials to arrange the forum, she said. Burger was unavailable Jan. 7 for comment.

Panhellenic Council appoints new leaders, plans to unify Greek life Sarah Muscarella

STAFF WRITER

The Panhellenic Council will have entirely new leaders in 2019. Kendall Procaccino, theater and performance/education sophomore, was appointed president of Panhellenic Council, a student-run committee that oversees all OCU sororities and changes members every calendar year, said Levi Harrel, director of student engagement. “There is absolutely a new sense of energy and enthusiasm. These student leaders are excited, they are ready to go,” he said. Each position on the council rotates to a different sorority every year, and each organization handles choosing a nominee differently, Harrel said. Rather than have an election, Alpha Phi executives selected the Panhellenic president this year, Procaccino said. After running for a minor position in her sorority, Procaccino was chosen to serve as Panhellenic president. “It finally hit me what it was and how big of a deal it was. I didn’t know that I would be the person in charge of literally everything and representing Greek life in general,” Procaccino said. “I was super flattered and humbled by my sisters that gave me that opportunity.” Procaccino’s responsibilities as president include attending three meetings a week, representing all the sororities on campus and improving recruitment. Though the position requires quite a commitment, her responsibilities are worth it, Procaccino said. “It’ll take up a lot of time, but I want to do it, I want to have that. I love Greek life. It’s changed my life. I want to represent not only Alpha Phi, but OCU,” she said. Procaccino said she plans to focus on streamlining recruitment and amplifying Greek life’s presence on campus. Unifying the

M MEDIAOCU.com

I love Greek life. It's changed my life. I want to represent not only Alpha Phi, but OCU.

Kendall Procaccino theater and performance sophomore

houses is also a focus, she said. “I want the houses to become one and just represent OCU in general, and I also just want to make the recruitment process smooth, because it’s terrifying,” Procaccino said. “I want to really encourage and work with the freshman and the team and make it seamless and easy and chill.” Procaccino said she has not served as a leader at OCU, but was student body treasurer and thespian president in high school. “I’ve definitely always loved being a leader and guiding others and inspiring others,” Procaccino said. “I just thought I would have a small role, but I guess they saw something in me, which I was super humbled by.” Alongside Procaccino, Maddie Barnes, dance sophomore, will be vice president of recruitment, and Ellie Roth, finance junior, will be vice president of programming. Hannah Malinowski, dance junior, will be vice president of communications. In Phi Mu, Malinowski served as the assistant Phi director and Phi director, the point of contact for new members of the sorority. She ran for the Panhellenic position because she wanted

to get involved with recruitment, and Phi Mu executives chose her, she said. “I decided that I wanted to move to more of a Panhellenic scope because I love recruitment,” Malinowski said. “Getting to help women experience that in the best way possible is something that was so intriguing to me, and being able to enhance women’s Greek Life experience was something that I was really excited about.” As vice president of communications, Malinowski serves as Rho Gamma during recruitment, guiding freshmen through the process. She also acts as secretary during Panhellenic meetings and updates Procaccino’s agenda. Running the Panhellenic social media is her responsibility as well. “I am planning on being more active on social media. I think, especially for our generation, that’s how a lot of people communicate with each other, and so I think it’s important to utilize those media sources that we have,” she said. Malinowski said she hopes people follow the Panhellenic council pages for information about on-campus events, even if they are not going through recruitment. Students may follow Panhellenic Council on Instagram at @okcu_panhellenic or on Twitter at @OKCUPanhellenic. They also may like the Facebook page, “OKCU Panhellenic.” “I’m so excited for the people that I’m going to get to work with. All of the members from all the other houses are so extraordinary,” Malinowski said. “I think we each bring something so unique to our role, and I just can’t wait to see what we do this year with the new exec team.”

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