In This Issue

Dream Course:
Journalists Under Fire
Anthony Feinstein, M.D., Ph.D.
6 p.m., Ethics & Excellence Auditorium

Dr. Feinstein is involved in a series of studies of relevance to current issues within our society.  The questions being addressed are: How are journalists affected emotionally by their work in zones of conflict and what motivates them to pursue such dangerous occupations? In 2000-2001 he was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship to study mental health issues in post-apartheid Namibia. This led to the development of that country's first rating scale for mental illness. Subsequent work in Botswana produced that country's first rating scale for mental illness as well.

Documentary Film Screening:
V-Day 11.11.11
6:30 p.m., Ethics & Excellence Auditorium
Award-winning documentary with Suzanne Chandler as one of numerous filmmakers who donated their time to tell the stories of veterans from World War II to present.

ACEJMC Accreditation Site Visit
Members of the accreditation team will be in Gaylord Hall. Please be prepared to meet with them at some point or have them visit your class during this time. Check your e-mail for a detailed schedule from Kathy Adams.

Dream Course:
Bedrooms of the Fallen
Ashley Gilbertson,
award-winning photographer
6 p.m., Ethics & Excellence Auditorium

Ashley Gilbertson's imagery from Iraq, where he worked from 2002 until 2008 for the New York Times, earned him critical acclaim from, among others, the Overseas Press Club which awarded Gilbertson the prestigious Robert Capa Gold Medal for his 2004 work in Falluja. His first book, Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, was released in 2007 and went on to become a best seller, reaching the Top 100 on Amazon. Since then, Gilbertson has been producing Bedrooms of The Fallen, a collection of photographs depicting the intact bedrooms of service members who died in Iraq and Afghanistan.

ESPN Founder, Bill Rasmussen
Sponsored by Campus Activities Council
7 p.m., Molly Shi Boren Ballroom in the OMU

Faculty Meeting
1 p.m.
Gaylord Hall, Room 3160

Dream Course:
Tell Them I Didn't Cry
Jackie Spinner, assistant professor,
Columbia College Chicago
6 p.m., Ethics Excellence Auditorium

Jackie Spinner arrived as the most junior member of The Washington Post bureau staff, working as a metro reporter and financial reporter, before becoming Baghdad Bureau Chief. In Iraq, she survived mortar attacks, car bombs, the Battle for Fallujah, and a kidnapping attempt outside of Abu Ghraib prison. Spinner left the Post in 2009 and founded Angel Says: Read, an international literacy project based in Belize, Central America. In 2010, she returned to Iraq to start the award-winning AUI-S Voice,Iraq's first independent student newspaper at The American University of Iraq. She is the author of Tell Them I Didn't Cry: A young journalist's story of joy, loss and survival in Iraq (Scribner 2006).

Adobe Premiere 101 Training
Gaylord Hall Room 1120
10 a.m. to Noon

Gaylord Prize honoring Tom Brokaw
Postponed until spring 2015.

Thanksgiving Break
No classes; Administrative and advising offices open.

Convocation
10 a.m.
Catlett Music Center
Reception following at Gaylord Hall
Staff report by 8:15 a.m.
Students report by 9 a.m.
Faculty line up by 9:15 a.m.

I recently had the opportunity to accompany Joe to the annual OU Recruitment dinner in Dallas, hosted by OU's Recruitment Services office. This high profile event featured the OU Student Government president (a Gaylord College student, by the way), all of the academic deans, Provost Harper, and OU president, David Boren. A small contingency of the Pride of Oklahoma marching band revved the crowd up to the sounds of "Oklahoma" and "Boomer Sooner." Suffice it to say it was a very festive event and engaged crowd at an elegant hotel, the Omni Mandalay Bay in Los Colinas, Texas.

 

The dinner assembled more than 750 people, of which, approximately 280 of the attendees were prospective OU students (Gaylord College majors occupied approximately 3.5 tables). At some point in the dinner, during one of the presentations, a thought occurred to me regarding what is the potential economic impact of this group of prospective students on the University of Oklahoma. I did the math and understand why this event makes sense.

 

 

If you assume all 280 students become OU students and stay four years at current tuition and fee rates, their approximate economic impact would be $35.8 million dollars to OU. Non-residents of Oklahoma pay approximately $32,000 (tuition, fees, books, and room/board). Each student (and her/his family) will spend in excess of $128,000 for four years as an undergraduate student at OU. As a comparison, Oklahoma resident undergraduates pay approximately $19,000 per year, or $76,000 over their four years of their undergraduate experience at OU.

 

For those of us with kids in college, we are painfully aware of the cost of a college education. Without a doubt, students will ultimately benefit long-term from this investment in their college education and future. The students and their families crossing our paths are paying a heavy toll to be educated at OU (especially our non-resident students-of which are about 40% of the Gaylord College). Students are also leaving OU with an average student loan debt of approximately $28,000.

 

My point? I'm not sure what my point is with this piece other than to share a great experience and sensitize each of us to the sacrifices our students and their families are making to allow them to study and learn under your tutelage. It is up to all of us to take exceptional care of our students-and, each other.

 

Thank you,  

John Hockett 

 

We have finally received approval from OU Public Affairs to implement our new branding. I appreciate that you, like me, are eager to start using the new branding and may have had items or projects on hold for a while now. However, we have yet to receive the actual deliverables of the logo files (the above version is an intermediate version) and brand standards.

The deans and I have set the official launch date to coincide with the start of the spring semester. So, some things will need to wait a little longer and we will finish out fall 2014 with the remainders of our existing materials.

It is important that we coordinate the implementation and not dribble out the logo or make changes randomly. I am assembling a list of items that need updating or replacing and a timeline. Some items, like this newsletter, will begin transitioning to our new look without the logo, but most items will be launched together after the first of the year. Expect to return from winter break to see newly branded items and displays throughout the building and new promo items for the first week of school. 

 

Both the BOV Branding Committee and the Visibility Task Force have recommended that we implement a new website to both embrace our new branding and address content deficiencies. This will be a somewhat lengthier process and we will be working on this throughout the coming year.

   

We have the rare opportunity to reset our branding efforts and the presentation of our brand to our audiences, and to do so in a manner that is integrated and on message across the board. For the first time in many years everything will have a cohesive look whether it is a small postcard or bookmark, brochure, building display, banners or eventually the website.

 

This is a dynamic time for the college and I am very excited to be planning and executing these changes, but I can't do it alone and I hope that I can count on each of you to help execute this across the board.

 

Thank you,

 

Celia Perkins 

 

 

The Provost's Office is excited to announce an initiative related to OU's Master's degree programs. The initiative is intended to seize the tremendous opportunity that OU has to expand Master's enrollments while providing departments with a mechanism to generate discretionary funds. Advanced credentials beyond the Bachelor's are increasingly important. More and more students see the Master's as a desirable terminal degree. And in July, Moody's noted that while bachelor's enrollments are likely to be stable in the future, master's enrollments are likely to grow. Data suggest that OU has the potential for strong, sustained growth in this area. While other Carnegie high-research universities have significantly grown their master's enrollments over the last decade, ours have been level.

 

Because graduate admissions decision-making resides at the department and college level, we want to provide both an incentive and a means to cover potential costs for expanding Master's level enrollments at OU. Beginning in Fall 2015, any net tuition revenue generated from Master's enrollments above a four-year historical average will be shared equally (50-50) between the department and central administration. Any shared tuition will be distributed directly back to the department's budget as discretionary funds.

 

Each current master's program will be assigned a baseline net tuition revenue figure. Actual net tuition (tuition less waivers) earned in excess of the baseline figure is shared equally between the department and central administration. The baseline figure will be determined by taking the four year average of credit hours produced from students in the master's program during the spring and fall semesters multiplied by current tuition rates, less the tuition waivers awarded to the students. Separate calculations will be performed for resident and non-resident students to arrive at a total baseline tuition revenue figure for each master's program.

 

If the average enrollment of the master's program falls below the State Regents' minimum enrollment the baseline will be determined using the State Regents' minimum enrollment.

 

Additionally, the baseline will be determined on an aggregate, department-wide basis for departments currently offering more than one master's program. As such, there will be one baseline per department.