Town Hall Meeting

It was standing room only for part of today's Town Hall Meeing with Pres. Shelton. Perhaps even more concerned students would have come had it not been announced on such short notice.

Shelton stated that his overall goal is to improve the quality of the unversity overall and make the quality of education better. Among our favorite quotes were: "It's gonna be a hard 18 months." "The World's more than just a major." "It's all about people." "We can't keep trimming back on everything, but eliminate some things."

He also claimed that "Despite some materials that have been distributed" tuition has not been set for next year yet. What materials could he possibly mean? The Tucson Citizen, perhaps?

Unfortunately, he was unable to provide the audience with a clear timeline on when final decisions would be made and by whom. Despite his mention of the October 13th deadline on the "White papers" from departments and colleges, and his highlighting of certain groups such as SPBAC, which will be reviewing the white papers, it remains unclear exactly when changes will be made and exactly by whom.

Graduate students expressed frustration with increasing class sizes with no corresponding increase in pay and resources. They also expressed concern about the status of their degree programs, their workload and the quality of graduate and undergraduate education at this university. Also, one student highlighted the so-far unmentioned fact that the library is being cut once again.

Shelton placed a large portion of the blame on the state for habitually underfunding the University of Arizona. This is a good time to mention that you can find the address and phone number of your state representatives at: www.az.gov

Shelton did admit: "There are probably no harder working folks in the country than grad students." And added that "Graduate students do more teaching by dollar than lecturers."

Again, he suggested that more online classes need to be made available to students, but also admitted that overall, online classes are rather expensive. One student commented that she is now wondering if she made the right choice in deciding to study at U of A. If it's all going to be online, why not go to University of Phoenix? Good point, gutsy freshman!

The ASUA president encouraged the crowd to e-mail him their ideas: tbruce@email.arizona.edu and I think we should.