The good, the sad and the confusing
Several stories caught my eye these last few days, one good, one less so and one that I’ve read about seven times and still don’t understand.
1.) Xunlight makes first delivery, The Blade:
After more than half a decade the former UT start-up business Xunlight sold the first solar panel to come off its production line yesterday. The buyer? The UT Scott Park Campus of Energy and Innovation where it will serve both a symbolic and utilitarian role as UT’s alternative energy focus continues to broaden.
2.) $8 million deficit UT plans temporary furloughs, new layoffs, The Blade
The UT Trustees’ Finance Committee recommended to the full board for its Sept. 21 meeting the budget amendment needed to re-balance UT’s budget after the state cut funding to balance its budget in July. The result will be furloughs and another smaller, but no less painful, round of layoffs. The president spoke at the Aug. 6 Town Hall meeting about not letting today’s temporary pain overshadow the goals for the institution as a whole – and acknowledged just how difficult that task actually is.
3.) Nothing’s Guaranteed, Editorial, Independent Collegian
I have to assume this opinion piece is based on several basic misunderstandings. The editorial essentially asserts the UT Guarantee program is sitting on the edge of a metaphorical knife and could succeed or fail with the slightest news either way. While warnings about the potential dangers of pilot programs and trial runs may have made some sense a year ago, the results are actually in now; tangible results to measure and celebrate – which the IC points out on the front page of its news section. The editorial struck me like warning a marathon runner about the dangers of dehydration 30 minutes after she won the race and has been checked out and cleared by doctors.
The UT Guarantee has been a success for everyone, even those who may have never heard of it before. Here’s why:
- UT’s Strategic Plan calls for increasing the number of undergrads from 16,000 in 2006 to 20,000 in 2011. We’ve currently passed the 18,000 mark. The increase in Blue and Gold Scholars (recipients of the Guarantee) comes from students who either wouldn’t have gone to college or would have gone to schools in Cleveland, Columbus or local branch campuses.
- The Guarantee program brings in students who are well-qualified, diverse and more likely to graduate.
- Blue and Gold Scholars are, by-in-large, receiving sizable Pell Grants and state awards. The result is UT is paying about $3,000 per student, on average, to cover the remainder of their tuition rather than $8,000 per student to cover their tuition. This frees up more UT scholarship money available to award to UT’s student body. The UT Guarantee program certainly received the vast majority of UT’s marketing efforts this past year because it was new and innovative. Meanwhile, more quietly, the rest of the UT student body received the vast majority of the $40 million UT dedicates each year to scholarships.
The UT Guarantee would be a good idea even if it lost money because it changes the lives of many Blue and Gold Scholars from urban communities and that is exactly the mission of this University. The fact that one year after it was envisioned it has brought more, better-qualified students to campus AND more than paid for itself is cause for campus-wide celebration.
Jon Strunk is UT’s media relations manager, a graduate of UT’s College of Arts and Sciences, a student in its College of Business Administration and a man constantly wary of his cell phone ringing. With the media having only so much space and so much time to tell a story, Jon has reserved this space on the World Wide Web to highlight, analyze, complain, lobby, beg, apologize and comment on media coverage of UT, higher education and, from time to time, his half-hearted quest to replace his ’96 Mercury Sable.
August 26th, 2009at 2:01 pm
I totally agree with you. The Blue and Gold scholars program is great for students from communities in need. UT is doing an amazing thing and I have no idea why the collegian is so upset about it. But I am concerned about what Larry Burns is talking about with the Boy Scout program. In such a diverse community why is UT linking up with such a homophobic and discriminatory group? Do we really need to increase anti-gay rhetoric on campus? Who is going to head up this union – Crystal Dixon?? (I hear she’s still looking for work!)
R.C.