Hello and welcome to my second bi-weekly blog post, Issue of the Hour
My first one can be found here.
If anyone has any concerns or needs that they think I should look into and write about, please feel free to leave suggestions in the comment section.
Today’s topics: Concerning bursar news, updates on the Childcare Center project and the WCSA student club/union
Concerning Bursar News: IU has changed the bursar limit without notifying students
Protest sign from almost two decades ago— when will they listen?
Image Credit: Manfred Werner
One of my acquaintances posted to discord 3 days ago informing members of their group that IU has changed the bursar limit (previously $2000) to $1000 without notifying students, and according to the person who I got the information from, IU told staff and faculty not to put this information into writing.
This means that if your bursar bill is over $1000, you cannot register for new classes. In my acquaintance’s words, “This could prevent students graduating on time, affect financial aid and potentially even influence students to drop out if they can’t get their bill down fast enough”. My acquaintance told the people in their server to tell as many people as they can, because students deserve to be informed.
When I asked for the source of the information, my acquaintance responded that they couldn’t give a source because staff are not allowed to inform students about this unless specifically asked and my acquaintance doesn’t want to jeopardize the person who told them. They then directed me to the Titan Success Center for any questions or concerns.
I haven’t done any further research as of the moment, but this is pretty alarming. I wish that I could write more extensively about this issue, but this is something I only found out about a couple of days ago. I will update this blog as soon as I have more information.
Updates on the Childcare Center Project
In my last post, I detailed my findings on the old child development center that once ran on campus for student/faculty parents and parents in the local community to place their children in good hands while they worked. I also wrote about potential plans to get the childcare center up and running again.
Since I wrote my last entry, I have spoken with Susan Cress, a retired IU South Bend professor of early childhood education who was very active and involved with the child development center at IUSB for 25 years. The information on the linked page may be slightly outdated, as she retired a few years ago.
During our meeting she told me that the business plan that was written up to re-open the childcare center was written while the school still had the proper infrastructure in place to run the center, but it has since been torn down in order to move the bookstore there.
She also stated that right now, St. Joseph County, due to recent funding cuts from the federal and state government, is very low on voucher money for childcare— and while most student parents at IUSB would be eligible for them, the waiting lists are extensive.
She said that it would be logistically very difficult and very expensive to re-open the old childcare center, and that, realistically, re-opening it in the near future is an improbability.
However, she said that there are other ways to help students with childcare that we as a student body can most certainly utilize right now. She recommended finding a list of all available childcare services and nonprofits in the area and making the list publicly accessible to all IU students. She said that contacting to the social work group at IUSB would be a good way to find resources, and I plan to do so in the near future.
She also recommended parent-to-parent trade offs and friendships and on-the-spot babysitting— something that would require a lot of organizing, but would ultimately be easier than starting the
childcare center up again in the short term. I think that the WCSA may provide a good avenue for that.
Re-starting the childcare center is not entirely out of the question yet, though: a blue wave has swept the nation, proving that democracy is still working and the tides are shifting. I believe that once Indiana University gets back up on its feet after this whole fiasco dies down, we may have a second chance. In the meantime, we must utilize the avenues available to us.
Our Student Union at IUSB is now official— we have a Titan Atlas page and a Discord!
The Working Class Students of America has a discord and a titan atlas page as of now. We are excited to be an official club, and are in the process of planning our first official meeting.
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