TO CLIPS INDEX  Clips for January 15, 2009

Rio Nuevo's UA, state museum plans are scaled
back
Arizona Daily Star 1/15/09
The University of Arizona Science Center and
Arizona State Museum building at Rio Nuevo
has been pared back considerably from the
iconic Rainbow Bridge first envisioned by
architect Rafael Vinoly but the new boxier
design has a couple of advantages university
officials said Wednesday — it can be built on
time and within budget. At a public meeting
held Wednesday to present the latest design
concepts, Bob Smith, UA assistant vice
president for Facilities Design & Construction,
predicted that site work for the center will begin
in late spring and building will start by late
summer. The budget for the building, provided
by the city through tax-increment finance bonds,
is $130 million.

Plans for downtown museums unveiled
Tucson Citizen 1/15./09
The public got its first look Wednesday evening
at initial designs for the combined University of
Arizona Science Center/Arizona State Museum.
It saw a modern take on traditional Southwest
architecture. A 40-foot-high wall evoking the
adobe walls of prior centuries encloses the
buildings and the 300-foot-wide courtyard
between the science center and museum. An
80-foot-wide gap in the wall would serve as
the entry to the courtyard, the science center
and museum, and the planetarium and giant-
screen theater that would sit in the courtyard,
said Rafael Viñoly-Menendez, project director
for Rafael Viñoly Architects.

Arizona's projected budget shortfall rises to
$1.6 billion
The Associated Press/Tucson Citizen 1/15/09
PHOENIX — Arizona's budget shortfall, one of
the biggest in the nation by percentage, is getting
bigger. The Legislature's budget staff announced
Wednesday that its projection for the current $9.9
billion budget's shortfall is now nearly $1.6 billion,
up from $1.2 billion previously. Budget director
Richard Stavneak announced the increase during
a briefing for lawmakers on the scope of the
state's budget woes. Legislators are
contemplating cuts in most state programs.  At
12 percent, the Arizona shortfall for the current
year was 2nd nationally in a November update
by the National Conference of State Legislatures.

NAU measures up with higher ed award
Inside NAU 1/14/09
Northern Arizona University is the only four-
year university nationwide receiving a Council
forHigher Education Accreditation award for
its commitment to student learning. The 2009
CHEA Award for Institutional Progress in
Student Learning Outcomes is recognition for
NAU's success in student learning outcomes
and using those outcomes to evaluate and
improve programs. “We are thrilled to receive
this award reflecting the cumulative effort of
faculty and staff who have embraced
assessment as a key strategy for advancing
the quality of our programs,” said Karen
Pugliesi, NAU's vice provost for Academic
Affairs. Established in 2006 to recognize
institutions exceptional in developing and
applying evidence of student learning out-
comes to improve educational quality, the
award was given by a council committee of
experts from higher education institutions
who chose NAU from 32 applicants.

Winter Session enrollment jumps again
Inside NAU 1/14/09
Enrollment in Northern Arizona University's
2008 Winter Session jumped higher for the
seventh consecutive year. Winter Session
enrollment increased 10.4 percent, from
825 in 2007 to 911 in 2008. Overall
enrollment has grown more than 98 percent
since the program started in 2002.  “Northern
Arizona University strives to provide options
to students to allow them to complete their
degrees as quickly as possible,” said Fred
Hurst, vice president for Extended Programs
and dean of Distance Learning.

Editorial: Creation of UA 'super-college' may
have unanticipated consequences
Arizona Daily Wildcat 1/15/09
Get ready to say farewell to four of the UA's
colleges. No, they're not going anywhere.
Rather, the College of Humanities, College
of Science, College of Social and Behavioral
Sciences and University College are to be
merged into a single "super-college," to be
dubbed the College of Letters and Science.
It's the boldest step we've seen yet in
President Robert Shelton's Transformation
Plan, the plan he announced last fall to
reform the university in the name of greater
efficiency and cost-effectiveness. The new
college would house more than 17,000
students - out of a total student body of 38,000
- and nearly half of the UA's faculty, making it
by far the largest college on campus. One's
first impulse, paradoxically, might be to
wonder what the big deal is. Since the big
three colleges, at least, will retain their deans,
and we're assured that all the colleges will
retain an enormous amount of independence
and autonomy, is this change anything more
than cosmetic?

UA: Merger won't impact students
Arizona Daily Wildcat 1/15/09
The recent creation of the massive Colleges of
Letters and Science is probably the most drastic
change in the model of academia at the UA.
However, UA officials say that professors and
students alike "won't even notice a change."
Vice Provost Gail Burd said the new college is
not three colleges all thrown into one, but rather
separate colleges united by a centralized leader-
ship. "You keep these three colleges - the College
of Humanities, College of Science, and College
of Social and Behavioral Sciences - and then
there is an executive dean," Burd said. "And that
is the Colleges of Letters and Science." The
money saving, Burd said, comes from moving
functions that used to take place in the individual
colleges to the upper college to be commanded
by the executive dean, Joaquin Ruiz.

More for Less
Inside Higher Education 1/15/09
Most college students are carrying a greater
share of the cost of their education, even as
institutions spend less on teaching them,
according to a report released today. The
report, published by the Delta Project on
Postsecondary Education Costs, Productivity,
and Accountability, gives a potentially troubling
picture of spending and revenue trends in
higher education. Spanning from 2002 to 2006,
the report indicates that tuition hikes have
resulted in little if any new spending on class-
room instruction at public research universities.
“The public’s got it exactly right,” said Jane
Wellman, head of the Delta Project. “They are
jacking up tuition, and they’re not reinvesting it
in quality.” There’s plenty of blame to go around,
however, for this predicament. With state support
waning for public colleges, rising tuition dollars
are merely being used to make up for lost
revenue — not for hiring more faculty or taking
other steps that would arguably improve class-
room instruction, the report asserts. On the other
hand, the Delta Project suggests that colleges
haven’t made the hard choices required for
adapting to lower subsidies, as evidenced by
relatively small changes in spending levels.

Commentary: Milton Greenberg: Rather Than
Asking for a Bailout, Higher Education, Heal
Thyself
The Chronicle of Higher Education 1/15/09
Hands are out — including those of higher
education — for a piece of the bailout package
about to be distributed by Congress and the
White House, desperate to save us from a
horrible recession caused in large measure
by the policies and ethos of both the prospective
donors and the hopeful recipients. The financial-
service and automobile industries are cases in
point. The government gave the former a pile of
cash with neither a plan nor a requirement about
what to do next. Leaders of the latter jetted to our
nation's capital, assuming that they, too, should
get a pile of money — but by then someone had
figured out that they ought to have a plan of action,
which they had forgotten to bring with them. Higher
education, identified by many as a major source
of economic pain because of the high price of its
services, has now publicly joined other entities in
claiming a crucial role in rejuvenating the nation.

Report on College Spending Trends Highlights
Inequities in Financing Model
The Chronicle of Higher Education  1/15/09
An analysis of spending trends that is designed
to discourage policy makers’ “myopic focus” on
finding new revenue rather than reining in
spending suggests that the model for financing
college has reinforced educational inequities
and failed to increase the rate at which students
graduate. What’s more, according to the analysis,
“serious fault lines” in the current system threaten
to undermine America’s capacity to educate its
citizens. Those conclusions are among the
highlights of a new report released today by
theindependent policy group, Delta Project on
Postsecondary Education Costs, Productivity,
and Accountability.

Democrats Push for Stimulus Package to
Include Education Spending
U.S. News & World Report 1/14/09
As Barack Obama's roughly $800 billion
stimulus package comes together on Capitol
Hill, Democratic lawmakers are pushing to
include provisions for education, from college
tuition tax credits to block grants for state and
local education budgets. As Congress firms
up the package's outlines, spurred on by
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's deadline of
Presidents Day, the bill seems likely to include
a "handful" of measures for education, says
New York Sen. Charles Schumer. Meanwhile,
recent plans to provide more than $160 billion
to state and local governments seem certain
to use education as a primary venue for the
funding.

Ariz. projected shortfall rises to $1.6 billion
Forbes.com 1/15/09 8:16 AM EST  
Arizona's budget shortfall, one of the biggest
in the nation by percentage, is getting bigger.
The Legislature's budget staff announced
Wednesday that its projection for the current
$9.9 billion budget's shortfall is now nearly
$1.6 billion, up from $1.2 billion previously.
Budget director Richard Stavneak announced
the increase during a briefing for lawmakers
on the scope of the state's budget woes.
Legislators are contemplating cuts in most
state programs. At 12 percent, the Arizona
shortfall for the current year was 2nd
nationally in a November update by the
National Conference of State Legislatures.