Gibson

University of Arizona engineering junior Malcolm Gibson is focusing on developing tiny robots to precisely deliver medicine and other treatments in the human body.

NASA announced Tuesday that Gibson was awarded a two-year aeronautics scholarship valued at $40,000.

Gibson has been working for two years on MEMS, or microelectromechanical systems, that can be steered through the bloodstream to a specific organ to deliver treatments exactly where needed.

While such microbots may appear to have little to do with flying, biomedical engineering plays a big role in aeronautics, said Tony Springer, lead for communications and education at NASA Aeronautics Research.

About 500 “cream of the crop” students applied for the 20 undergraduate and five graduate scholarships offered, Springer said.

The scholarship program’s goal is to attract top engineering talent to NASA in particular and the aerospace industry in general, he said.

Jeff Goldberg, dean of the UA College of Engineering, said, “We like to think our students are really strong and this shows they are strong on a national level.”

Gibson, 21, who is pursuing double majors in aerospace and mechanical engineering, said his research work and educational background helped him earn the scholarship.

“Even though the global aspect of the project is not related to aerospace, I’ve been focusing more on the mechanical aspects,” he said. “They are looking for motivated students who are involved in research, even if not directly related to aeronautics.”

The scholarship, which begins in September, offers $15,000 per year to cover tuitions costs for two years and $10,000 for use during a 10-week summer 2010 internship at a NASA research center.

Gibson, who plans to continue his MEMS research through graduation from UA, will leave in mid-August for five months of research and study at the Institute of Robotics and Intelligent Systems in Zurich, Switzerland.

Hollywood stretches scientific accuracy in a new action thriller starring Tom Hanks, a University of Arizona researcher said.

“Angels & Demons,” which opens Friday, tells the tale of bad guys who threaten to destroy Vatican City with an explosive device containing a tiny amount of antimatter.

“We’re debunking the premise that you can really create a dangerous device out of antimatter,” said Erich Varnes, associate professor of physics at UA. “I don’t want people to worry that terrorists are going to build an antimatter device and hold it over us.”

Varnes will discuss the science of antimatter and how it applies to the movie at 8 p.m. Wednesday in the UA Harvill Building.

When antimatter collides with matter – for example, a normal electron with a negative charge meets an antimatter electron with a positive charge – they are annihilated and converted into energy, Varnes said.

Since e=mc2, or energy equals mass multiplied by the speed of light squared, it would take a lot of antimatter to create an effective bomb, he said.

“If you had enough antimatter you could release huge amounts of energy,” he said. “The key point is there is really no practical way to generate or store enough antimatter to do any serious damage at all.”

If U.S. Department of Energy’s Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Illinois ran flat out for 20 years producing antimatter, and if you could store that much antimatter – which you can’t – you would have the equivalent of 10 pounds of conventional explosives, Varnes said.

The movie is accurate in stating that antimatter can be produced in a lab, and if you get enough, it would annihilate with matter and create a lot of energy, he said.

Scientists see public interest in the movie as an opportunity to inform the public.

“The movie uses particle physics as the basis of its entire plot,” he said. “This is a chance for people to learn what is real in the movie, what is exaggerated, and where we are at the cutting edge of particle physics today.”

The movie is based on a novel by Dan Brown, who also wrote the novel on which a 2006 movie, “The Da Vinci Code” was based.

———

IF YOU GO

What: Angels & Demons: The Science of Antimatter and the Large Hadron Collider

When: 8 p.m. Wednesday

Where: Room 150 of the Harvill Building, 1103 E. Second St.

Speaker: Erich Varnes, University of Arizona associate professor of physics

Cost: Free

———

WHAT IS ANTIMATTER?

Antimatter is made up of elementary antiparticles, like protons and electrons with an opposite electrical charge. When matter and antimatter come into contact, they release energy while being destroyed.

Look out, world, 448 new graduates from the University of Phoenix’s greater Tucson locations will be heading your way.

The commencement ceremony, which honors those who completed degrees online or at one of five southern Arizona locations, is 10 a.m. Saturday at the Tucson Convention Center, 260 S. Church Ave.

About 4,000 guests are expected to attend, according to a news release from the university.

Of the 448 degrees being awarded, four are associate’s degrees; 235 are bachelor’s degrees; and 209 are master’s degrees.

The most popular degrees awarded to this batch of grads are bachelor’s degrees in business management and master’s in business administration.

There are two campuses in Tucson, plus one each in Sierra Vista, Nogales and Yuma.

University commencements can sometimes produce widespread ennui among graduates and their well-wishers because of the excruciating length of the ceremonies.

There will be less chance of that rampant boredom at the 140th University of Arizona commencement this year because the undergraduate and graduate ceremonies are being shortened and separated by about 12 hours.

About 1,300 masters, specialist and doctoral degrees will be awarded by UA President Robert N. Shelton at 7:30 p.m. May 15 at McKale Memorial Center.

He’ll return at 8 a.m. May 16 to confer degrees upon the 4,895 undergraduates.

Many of those undergrads will have already participated in convocations at their individual colleges, which begin Wednesday with the College of Humanities graduate convocation.

Alan Weisman, UA associate professor of journalism and Latin American studies and author of “The World Without Us,” will be the keynote speaker at the May 15 ceremony.

Dean Kamen, inventor of the Segway Human Transporter, will address the undergraduates May 16 and will receive an honorary degree.

UA will award a number of honorary degrees during the graduate commencement May 15, including:

• Doctor of Humanities to Nadine Mathis Basha, founder of the Children’s Action Alliance and Summa Associates, a management firm specializing in corporate child care and elder care services.

• Doctor of Science to Edward Perry Bass, president of Fine Line Inc. and founding trustee of the Philecology Trust, which funds select nonprofit ecological interests.

• Doctor of Fine Arts to UA alumnus John Kilkenny, executive vice president at Twentieth Century Fox and head of the studio’s visual effects department. Kilkenny is working with UA in exploring the development of the nation’s first professional visual effects production training program.

• Doctor of Letters to Steve W. Lynn, vice president of Tucson Electric Power Co. and a UA alumnus.

• Doctor of Humane Letters to Ned L. Norris Jr., chairman of the Tohono O’odham Nation, and member of Shelton’s Native American Advisory Council,

• Doctor of Humane Letters to Cele Peterson, a fashion designer, entrepreneur, founder of the Tucson Children’s Museum and co-founder of Casa de Los Niños, the first crisis nursery in the U.S.

Six students will be honored during the undergraduate ceremony Saturday:

• Merrill P. Freeman Medals will be awarded to Jessica Anderson, a bachelor of science candidate and honors marketing major, and Craig Sheedy, an honors student with a double major in health sciences and molecular biophysics and physiology.

• Robie Gold Medals will be awarded to Joseph Fu, a bachelor of science candidate in molecular biology, microbiology and philosophy, and Justine Schluntz, a member of the UA swim team graduating summa cum laude from the College of Engineering with a bachelor of science degree in mechanical engineering.

• Robert Logan Nugent Medals will be awarded to Nancy Hernandez, graduating with a bachelor of science dual major in accounting and business economics, and Abraham Itty who will graduate summa cum laude with a bachelor of science degree in molecular and cellular biology and a bachelor of science in health sciences in physiology.

———

PCC commencement

Pima Community College, which is commemorating its 40th anniversary this year, will celebrate spring commencement at 7 p.m. May 21 at the Tucson Arena.

Heather Myers will be the keynote speaker for the ceremony, following PCC’s tradition of having a student address the graduating class.

Myers, who will receive an associate of business administration degree, was also the commencement speaker for Aztec Middle College’s first graduating class in 2000. She enrolled in Aztec after having a child at 16 and dropping out of high school. She received a high school diploma while getting college credit.

———

Convocations

Their degrees won’t officially be awarded until next weekend, but many University of Arizona graduates will have already attended what, to them, was “graduation” through individual college convocations.

Here are next week’s convocations:

Wednesday:

College of Humanities

Master’s and doctoral candidates, 3 p.m.; Student Union North Ballroom

Thursday:

College of Education, 9 a.m.; Centennial Hall

College of Science, 1 p.m.; Centennial Hall

College of Fine Arts, 5:30 p.m.; Centennial Hall

Friday:

College of Pharmacy, 9 a.m.; Centennial Hall

College of Humanities, undergraduates, 10 a.m.; Student Union North Ballroom

Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health, 11 a.m.; Temple of Music and Art

Eller College of Management, undergraduates, 1 p.m.; McKale Center

College of Nursing, 1 p.m.; Centennial Hall

College of Social and Behavioral Sciences, 2 p.m.; Tucson Convention Center Arena

University College, 3 p.m.; Integrated Learning Center

College of Optical Sciences, 5 p.m.; Integrated Learning Center 130

College of Medicine, candidates for a degree in medicine, 5 p.m.; Centennial Hall

Saturday:

College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, 11 a.m. at Centennial Hall

College of Architecture and Landscape Architecture, 11 a.m.; Crowder Hall

College of Medicine, physiology undergraduates, 11 a.m.; Student Union Memorial Center

College of Law, 2 p.m.; Centennial Hall

Eller College of Management, graduate students, 5 p.m.; Centennial Hall

UA South will celebrate two commencements for its bachelor and master’s degrees students. The first will be at 4 p.m. May 14 at the Buena Performing Arts Center in Sierra Vista. The second will be at 3 p.m. May 15 at the UA Science and Technology Park, 9040 S. Rita Road.

For more information on each college convocation and specifics about the College of Engineering, Multicultural Affairs and Student Success and ROTC visit: commencement.arizona.edu/collegeconvocations

———

Sick? Stay home

The executive director of UA Campus Health Services has posted instructions to graduates regarding family and friends attending next weekend’s commencement ceremonies.

Harry McDermott posted a message on the UA Commencement Web site asking students to request that ill family and friends not travel to Tucson. In addition, he reminded Tucsonans not to attend commencement ceremonies if they are ill.

Two key leadership positions at the University or Arizona have been filled with interim leaders.

Jory Hancock, director of UA’s School of Dance, has been appointed interim dean of the College of Fine Arts.

He replaces Dean Maurice J. Sevigny, who announced last month he will retire a year earlier than planned.

In addition, Lynne O. Wood, UA deputy general counsel, will serve as interim vice president for legal affairs and interim general counsel.

She will replace Judith E. Leonard, who has taken the position of general counsel for the Smithsonian Institution.

Hancock will begin his interim position July 1, and Wood will begin June 6, UA leaders said.

The university will conduct an internal search for a permanent College of Fine Arts dean, Provost Meredith Hay said in a campus memo.

The position of UA general counsel will be permanently filled only after a national search, President Robert N. Shelton said in a news release.

Leslie Tolbert, vice president for research, graduate studies and economic development, will chair the search committee for general counsel.

The Arizona Board of Regents has threatened to sue the Legislature if language in a proposed budget bill regarding sweeps of universities’ auxiliary funds is not removed.

“They can’t rewrite the law. These are not funds available to them and if we need to litigate to demonstrate that, we will,” said Fred DuVal, incoming vice president of the Board of Regents. “We will not be shy about it.”

But according to the chairman of the House Education Committee, the regents won’t have to sue.

“I just got done meeting with the lobbyists from the three universities and explained I want to prepare a memo to go out next week (to legislative leadership) that shows why we can’t do fund sweeps,” said Rep. Rich Crandall, R-Mesa.

Crandall said the lobbyists explained how the fund balances of auxiliaries, which are self-supporting units at the universities, are unavailable to the state.

“In some cases it doesn’t exist (as cash), it’s pledged to something else or it’s illegal,” Crandall said.

Auxiliary funds are essentially savings accounts for self-supporting university units such as the bookstores, residence halls, athletic departments and meal plan programs.

In the case of bookstores, the fund balance includes inventory, and thus isn’t cash. In other cases, fund balances are in programs funded through federal grants, which university leaders said is not subject to state legislative oversight or absorption.

The House Appropriations Committee met Tuesday to vote on a Republican package of 10 bills that would form the budget for the next fiscal year “if we have no other options available to us except cuts and sweeps,” Crandall said.

“We have to get it out of Appropriations before some (legislators) will even start talking about what our options are.”

That package included $394 million from “raiding fund balances in various state accounts.”

For the university system, that sweep would amount to about $90 million, more than half of which would come from the University of Arizona, said Greg Fahey, UA associate vice president for government relations.

Fahey said UA’s fund balance is about $47 million.

Auxiliary units develop budget reserves for a variety of reasons, including emergencies, to cover operating costs in an economic downturn and, in the case of residence halls, maintenance and new construction.

“It would be a catastrophe to lose this money that we’ve built up over careful management of these (auxiliary) activities,” Fahey said. “For instance, the bookstore wouldn’t have money to buy books. Dormitories wouldn’t have money for debt service and construction.”

Jaime Molera, a lobbyist for the regents who testified Tuesday before the House committee, said fund balances are also important to the universities because they affect the bond rating the institutions can get for new construction.

The more money a university has set aside, the higher its rating and the lower the interest rate on bonds, he said.

Crandall said university leaders need to take a deep breath and relax.

“Nobody has put out a working budget that solves the entire $3.2 billion shortfall,” he said. “Tuesday’s was the closest thing, and it has warts galore. But now it’s out of (Appropriations), so we can talk about what we need to do.”

The Arizona Republic contributed to this report.

Peter Smith

The Phoenix Mars Lander mission has been a successful steppingstone to greater discoveries on our neighboring planet, Peter Smith said Tuesday night.

Smith, the principal investigator for the University of Arizona-led mission, told about 125 people attending a Flandrau Science Center science cafe event that mankind is likely to set foot on Mars.

“Eventually I think the human race will get to Mars,” he said.

“There are no technology hurdles that would stop you from sending people to Mars. But you really want to be sure you are bringing back live astronauts.”

He said the seven-month journey each way and planet positioning means that the mission would likely last three years.

Current plans call for such a mission to take place between 2030 and 2035, he said. But if there are problems with efforts sooner to send people to the moon again, there will be a delay going to Mars.

The Phoenix Lander tasted frozen water in material scooped from the planet’s northern arctic region, but found no conclusive evidence that life exists or existed on the planet.

That will likely change.

“I’m predicting that in 10 years we will have found strong signatures of life on Mars or the other planets we’ve discovered,” Smith said. “We’re not trying to make Mars into something it isn’t – it may not have life. If that’s the case it’s still a great planet that has no life.”

Smith fielded many questions from the capacity crowd at Cushing Street Bar & Restaurant, which featured a special $4 Martian margarita to mark the occasion.

When asked if Mars is the new high ground for U.S. military imperialism, Smith said no, adding tongue in cheek that the moon would be a much better choice for a military outpost.

“I don’t think there is any military use of Mars – not in a decade, a century or a millennium,” he said.

He said there was no question about basing the mission in Tucson.

“I didn’t want to participate if we didn’t do it my hometown. I grew up here,” Smith said to applause from the crowd.

Steve Walkosak, 69, a Tucson Realtor and investor, said the presentation was great.

“We got to see what they had to go through to put it together and see what they found out,” Walkosak said.

Sean Miller (left) asks Alejandro Leyva about his project, the Full Spectrum Imaging System, on Tuesday at the University of Arizona Student Union. Leyva's senior engineering project was one of about 70 on display.

University of Arizona engineering senior Javier Heyer cooked his Cinco de Mayo quesadillas with the power of the sun.

Heyer and his team were among 70 groups participating in Engineering Design Day at the UA Student Union Memorial Center.

Four- and five-person student teams demonstrated projects that covered a broad spectrum of engineering disciplines, said Jeff Goldberg, dean of the College of Engineering.

Student projects displayed included a missile blast deflector for an Apache helicopter, a variety of unmanned aerial vehicles, a full-spectrum imaging system, a leave-behind remote sensor, solar cars, an ultraviolet pasteurizer for milk, a photovoltaic energy system for remote power applications and a pepper spray mount for an M-16 rifle.

Senior student teams worked for two semesters to solve problems presented by industry partners, Goldberg said.

“The primary goal is to give students design experience with a real client in a practice mode,” he said. “We want to give them a rehearsal.”

Student teams also competed for more than $10,000 in cash prizes donated by event sponsors, Goldberg said.

Heyer’s team built a solar cooker that uses a Fresnel lens to focus the sun’s energy to heat mineral oil.

The oil is circulated to warm stovetop heating elements, he said.

The oil can be circulated to heat cooking elements inside the home or restaurant, as well as outside where the solar collector is located, he said.

Despite Tuesday’s overcast skies the solar cooker reached 330 degrees while grilling cheese quesadillas, he said.

One team developed a portable device to detect gluten, a substance found in cereal grains to which many people have allergic reactions.

Food can be tested to see if it contains gluten and is safe to eat by people with a gluten intolerance, said team member James Nimlos.

The device’s portability means it can be used to test restaurant food for gluten, Nimlos said.

At the other end of the digestive spectrum, a team developed a device to remove loops that develop in a flexible colonoscope instrument that is being pushed through a person’s bowels during a colonoscopy exam.

Looping of the colonoscope inside a person means the examining doctor must spend time straightening out the instrument, said Blake Randolph, team member.

The improved way of straightening out an inserted colonoscope could cut 30 minutes off an exam, Randolph said.

A UA senior engineering team developed a device to warn drivers who doze off behind the wheel.

Their brain wave activity alarm, a lightweight wireless device that detects when eyes get droopy and close, could improve driving safety, said team member Joseph Bitz.

The devices, which can be manufactured in large quantities for $6.52 each, could have other uses including medical monitoring of brain activity, team member Henry Barrow said.

The device could hit the market within the next year or so, Bitz said.

UA engineering sophomore Kevin Ferguson viewed the senior project demos and said Engineering Design Day showed him what his professional future holds.

“It gives you a very real idea of what you are getting into and what you can do with an engineering degree,” Ferguson said.

The event contributed to the seniors’ grades, as well as showcasing their engineering skills, said Martha Ostheimer, director of the UA interdisciplinary engineering design program. She said 65 judges from 40 companies spent hours judging the teams for prizes and grades.

Javier Heyer cooks a quesadilla on his senior engineering project, the Concentrated Solar Cooking and Heating System.

Jay-Z received $750,000 for his performance at the Last Smash Platinum Bash concert at Arizona Stadium on April 29.

It was billed as the event that would prove Arizona Stadium was a viable concert venue.

But the Last Smash Platinum Bash turned out to be a nearly $1 million bust for the Associated Students of the University of Arizona.

The concert, which mixed it up with hip-hop artist Jay-Z and pop star Kelly Clarkson, cost the UA student organization $1.4 million to stage, but brought in slightly more than $503,000.

Chris Nagata, incoming ASUA president, blamed the slow ticket sales on the economy and said this would not be the end of ASUA concerts at UA.

“No one predicted last May when we were planning that the economy would have such a major downturn,” Nagata said. “But we’re committed to concerts as recruiting and retention tools. Students want to come to a campus that provides them with opportunities like this.”

Nagata said the next ASUA concert will “minimize the financial risk” to the student group through sponsorships or community partnerships.

The concert loss will be partially covered by ASUA’s $350,000 emergency reserve. The remaining shortfall will be covered by a $567,000 loan from UA BookStore to be paid back over five years, said Frank Farias, executive director of bookstore operations.

ASUA and the bookstore have a revenue-sharing agreement that is renegotiated every five years. The most recent contract was signed this year and allocates $530,000 annually to ASUA from bookstore revenues.

To pay off the loan, that allocation will drop by $114,000 over the next five years, Farias said, meaning ASUA will receive $570,000 less from its primary source of funding than anticipated through 2014.

Farias said the contract with ASUA includes a stipulation that if the bookstore covers its operating costs, ASUA will receive 2 percent of the profits. If that happens, he said, ASUA’s share will be held by the bookstore “to accelerate the loan payments.”

The red ink has launched a Facebook group encouraging UA students to boycott a student fee that partially funds some ASUA programs and to demand that stipends paid to the ASUA president and two vice presidents be eliminated.

The ASUA president receives an annual $6,000 stipend, and the two vice presidents receive $4,500, Nagata said.

Vice President for Student Affairs Melissa Vito said concerts are always a risk.

“What’s kind of too bad about this is that student government had done a lot of concerts in the past that came in within budget,” Vito said.

“They had pages of data to support why these (performers) were selected and everyone who reviewed the proposal thought they would do well. . . . Their funding will be reduced by over $100,000 and that’s a hard consequence.”

Tommy Bruce, outgoing ASUA president, began planning the concert last May on the heels of a break-even McKale Center concert featuring Kanye West. About 9,000 tickets were sold to that event, bringing in about $550,000.

He said ASUA anticipated selling 17,000 tickets for last week’s event, based on the performers’ draw in cities similar in size to Tucson. Instead, only 6,100 tickets were sold, priced from $25 to $200. About 3,000 were given away in exchange for marketing and promotions services, Bruce said. About 200 of the $200 tickets were available and all were sold, he said.

Payments for Bash performers varied. Jay-Z got $750,000, Clarkson was paid $175,000, Third Eye Blind earned $85,000 and the Veronicas got $20,000.

ASUA spent about $100,000 on staging, lights, video, audio, parking, merchandise and safety and security personnel.

The concert was the first in Arizona Stadium since Fleetwood Mac performed in 1977.

Bruce, who has successfully fought tuition increases at UA and negotiated a predictability clause in the most recent tuition agreement, knows many students are focused on the concert losing money.

“It’s the furthest thing from an ideal situation, but it’s not the only thing I’ve done in my two years as president,” he said. “But it’s one of the most public things and you just roll with it, I guess.”

The search for life on Mars continues.

The Phoenix Mars Lander mission led by the University of Arizona tasted frozen water in material scooped from the planet’s northern arctic region.

And other discoveries since the Lander’s surface operations ended six months ago have expanded researchers’ understanding of our neighboring planet, said Peter Smith, who led the Phoenix mission.

On Tuesday Smith will discuss efforts to find evidence of life on Mars at a UA Flandrau Science Center science cafe event.

Science cafes are casual forums where people can discuss a topic with UA researchers in a relaxed atmosphere.

“It’s not just about the Phoenix mission; it’s all about the search for life on Mars,” Smith said. “I will try and broaden it out a bit.”

Smith’s presentation begins at 6 p.m. at Cushing Street Bar & Restaurant and will be followed by an informal public discussion on Martian exploration.

“There are a lot of other people studying Mars,” Smith said. “There have been some very interesting developments in the past six months, even since Phoenix.”

UA’s High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment camera circling the planet aboard NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter satellite found evidence of sub-surface ice at 43 degrees north latitude – south and closer to the Martian equator than where Phoenix landed, Smith said.

The HiRISE camera photographed white material in five craters caused by meteorite impacts. The white material, believed to be frozen water, disappeared over time as seen in subsequent HiRISE images. Researchers believe the frozen water sublimated, or turned into gas, and disappeared into the atmosphere.

The thick ice layer appears to begin a half meter to a meter below the surface, Smith said.

Earth-based telescopes have discovered high concentrations of methane gas jetting out of regions on the Martian surface, Smith said.

Methane, which is closely linked to biological activity on Earth, could point toward evidence of living material beneath the Martian surface, Smith said.

Smith said researchers are closing in on discovering some form of life on another planet, possibly Mars.

“I don’t know what it’s going to be or where it’s going to be,” he said. “All I’m trying to say is we are hot on the trail of finding life.

“With the intensity of study on this problem I think there will be results within the next decade. It’s a prediction,” Smith said. “We are getting close.”

———

IF YOU GO

What: Flandrau Science Center science cafe

Topic: “Journey of the Phoenix”

Presenter: Peter Smith, principal investigator, Phoenix Mars Lander mission

When: 6-7:30 p.m. Tuesday

Where: Cushing Street Bar & Restaurant, 198 W. Cushing St.

Cost: Free, with food and beverages available for purchase

University of Arizona students will have to open their wallets a little wider this fall – but not as far as they feared.

The Arizona Board of Regents on Thursday approved Robert N. Shelton’s request for a temporary tuition surcharge, but at a lower rate than the UA president initially proposed.

Shelton decreased the UA surcharge from $1,100 for all enrollees to $766 for resident students and $966 for nonresidents.

Regents approved it by a 7-1 vote, with Student Regent David Martinez III voting no.

The surcharge – combined with the $545 tuition and fee increase approved in December – means in-state UA students will pay $6,842 next school year, a $1,310 increase over this year’s tuition. This represents the largest year-to-year dollar increase in tuition and fees in UA’s history.

Students from out of state will pay $22,251 instead of the $21,285 price tag approved in December.

A modified proposal from Arizona State University passed 6-2, with Martinez and Regent Robert Bulla voting no. A modified proposal from Northern Arizona University passed 7-1 with Martinez voting no.

ASU lowered its proposal from $1,200 for all students to $600 for residents and $800 for nonresidents, with an $80 health and wellness fee for all students. A regent motion, however, cut that to $510 for residents and $710 for nonresidents.

NAU’s proposal for a tuition surcharge of $350 for all students was approved for residents, but raised to $450 for nonresidents. Students who started on NAU’s guaranteed tuition plan will see no increase. All students there will be charged an information and technology fee of $72.

The surcharges will expire in one year. Of the revenue generated by their surcharges for need-based financial aid, NAU and UA will set aside 20 percent; ASU, 22 percent.

Shelton said UA’s surcharge will generate $18.7 million after $4.7 million is set aside for financial aid.

University presidents said Gov. Jan Brewer’s pledge of stimulus funding enabled them to lower proposed surcharges. Brewer announced she would give the universities maximum shares of the more than $1 billion in federal funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

About $830 million of the $1 billion is earmarked for K-12 and higher education. Brewer has discretion in dividing those funds, after federal requirements are met regarding backfilling a certain percentage of previous budget cuts.

University leaders had originally estimated about $225 million would be allocated to the state university system. After the meeting, Shelton said Brewer’s allocation is closer to $280 million of which 40 percent can be spent in fiscal 2010, beginning July 1.

The remaining 60 percent will be spent in fiscal 2011 – most of it to mitigate tuition increases, with a small percentage for “modernization and reform” required by the federal stimulus law.

Though lowered, the surcharges still amount to a midyear tuition increase for students, who opposed the fee no matter how small. A few dozen students showed up to silently protest the tuition increase, holding signs that read, “Do you value my future?” “No books for a year” and “Don’t turn away future teachers.”

UA political science sophomore Emily May appreciated that the surcharge was nearly halved but said it was small comfort.

“Everyone is going to have to start budgeting for more tuition, more tuition, then just cross our fingers,” she said. “Hopefully, it won’t get too high that I have to stop coming to school.”

Regent Fred DuVal, however, warned that more tuition increases and possible surcharges are likely.

“We’ve heard the message from the e-mails,” DuVal said. “And today is a response to the pain that exists with Arizona families. We get it, we heard it, but we haven’t avoided (increases). We’ve simply deferred a bigger price tag at the back end of the three-year stimulus.”

Modeling presented by the regents estimates that if state funding for the universities remains stagnant, UA would need to raise tuition about $600 in the 2010-11 academic year and then $2,799 for 2011-12 to fund expected increases in enrollment. The large increase between those years represents the “funding cliff” predicted when federal stimulus monies run out.

Brewer was at the meeting for about 20 minutes and gave a statement committing the money to the universities, saying she wanted it used specifically to mitigate tuition increases. In addition, the governor said the universities need to present plans by fall for new business models.

“The fact of the matter is once these federal dollars are used up, our university system will likely face another huge financial shortfall,” Brewer said. “Thus, you need to begin preparations immediately for the day that these federal dollars disappear.

“By this fall, I want to see a new business model that is accountable, predictable and affordable to taxpayers, parents and students.”

———

TUITION INCREASES

Students OK’d in Dec. With surcharge

Resident undergraduates: $6,076 $6,842

Nonresident undergraduates: $21,285 $22,251

Resident graduates: $6,866 $7,632

Nonresident graduates: $21,578 $22,544

The University of Arizona has identified three students who are studying in Mexico with Tec de Monterrey, a student exchange program at the Tecnológico de Monterrey.

UA spokesman Paul Allvin said classes at the Mexican institution have been cancelled, and the students are coming back to Arizona.

In addition, the university has identified 42 visiting scholars at UA who are from Mexico, and five more are expected to arrive soon, Allvin said. The ones who are on their way will be informed about health precautions before they arrive, he said.

Officials at UA have been meeting daily to discuss what they’ve learned about the swine flu and to determine if actions need to be taken at the university that day.

Allvin said he wouldn’t speculate what UA would do if a confirmed case of the flu was found on campus because the response would be based on a number of factors such as if the infected student lived in a dorm.

“We also have 88 faculty-sponsored projects ongoing in Mexico, but it is impossible to know which of these have faculty on the ground in Mexico right now and how many other employees are down there on unfunded service projects,” Allvin said.

A message from the provost’s office went out to campus leadership this week explaining that the university needs to develop a system to easily indentify which faculty might be out of country at any given time, he said.

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. – The U.S. Senate Indian Affairs Committee has endorsed the nomination of Yvette Roubideaux to lead the Indian Health Service.

Roubideaux, a member of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe, is an assistant professor in the University of Arizona’s College of Medicine.

Word of the Senate panel’s confirmation of the nomination on Thursday came from South Dakota Sen. Tim Johnson.

The nomination now goes to the full Senate.

The IHS provides health care to American Indians. Johnson’s office says an estimated 1.9 million Indians receive health care services through IHS or tribally operated health programs.

Mike Stoops

The University of Arizona has been reluctant to address specifically how much money this year’s massive campus reorganization would save, but Thursday at the Arizona Board of Regents meeting, the number was clear: $6 million.

The amount was detailed in a presentation on UA’s Academic Strategic Plan by Provost Meredith Hay.

In other business, the regents voted 6 to 1 to approve an amendment to the multi-year contract of UA head football coach Mike Stoops, which included raising his base salary to $1 million.

Regent Dennis DeConcini voted against the contract extension and salary increase, saying, “I find it hard to believe we’re going to approve this when we’re facing the (economic) problems we’re facing now.”

UA President Robert N. Shelton said bumping Stoop’s salary to $1 million would put him in the middle salary range for PAC 10 programs.

“He’s taken a program that was not reflective of the quality of this institution and he’s turned it around,” Shelton said, asking for the increase.

After the meeting, DeConcini said the contention that coach’s salaries are funded from ticket sales was a specious argument.

“These are public funds that come under the regents approval and we have an obligation to review and consider them well,” he said. “When we’re in the middle of a financial crisis and we don’t have to do it because he has 18 months left on his contract, well, it just looks bad to the public like, ‘They don’t care, it’s just another million dollars.’”

Hay was joined by the provosts from Arizona State University and Northern Arizona University in reviewing for regents major campus academic changes.

Regents unanimously approved all three plans with no comments or questions.

Hay said “no rock was left unturned” during the shakeup at UA, which resulted in closing numerous under-enrolled majors, creating the Colleges of Arts, Letters and Sciences, and mergers of various departments.

The estimated savings are expected to come from consolidation of administrative and business functions in merged colleges and departments, as well as layoffs of employees in certain areas.

According to documents presented to regents, staff layoffs are expected in the colleges of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Architecture and Landscape Architecture, Engineering, Humanities, Science and University College, which is being eliminated. Further savings will be realized by using fewer adjuncts in the colleges of Science and Education, according to the report.

Rising costs mean more looking for financial help

University of Arizona students Theo Bisbicos (right), 22, and Julio Sermeno (second from right), 21, wait with other students to get financial aid counseling at the UA financial aid office inside the UA Administration Building on a recent afternoon.

By combining federal grants, loans and his salary from part-time jobs, University of Arizona junior Kyle Versluis has been able to cover the costs of his education without spending hours filling out scholarship applications or surfing scholarship Web sites.

If the Arizona Board of Regents approves proposed tuition surcharges at its meeting Thursday, that will change.

“I’m going to do everything I can to stay in school, but the way it looks, it’ll be hard,” Versluis said. “Everyone’s not giving away as much money because everyone is feeling the economic struggle and (all the students) are out there trying to get their little bit of the pie.”

Universities, colleges and nonprofit organizations are noticing increases of up to 40 percent in scholarship applications as high school graduates and current college students search for solutions to an economic perfect storm: parental job losses, unprecedented tuition hikes and stagnant donations to scholarship funds.

At UA, scholarship applications are up about 17 percent compared with last year at this time, according to John Nametz, director of the Office of Student Financial Aid.

Perhaps more telling, Nametz said, is that there has been a 30 percent increase in the number of “change of circumstance” forms filed by students this year over last.

Those forms allow current UA students to explain changes in their financial status due to family illness or job loss.

“I expect we’ll get more of those as the months go on,” Nametz said. “I can’t emphasize enough that students need to let us know if there’s a change in their economic situation.”

Cheryl House, executive director of the Pima Community College Foundation, said the organization had received 1,600 applications as of mid-April.

“Yikes,” House said when looking at the numbers.

“Our deadline is May 29, and last year at that time, we had only 1,400.”

Wray Milam is a PCC student hoping to transfer to UA sometime within the next year.

“I applied for six scholarships and I got two, which is pretty good,” Milam said. “If I didn’t have these scholarships, that’s it. I wouldn’t be in school because I’d have to work full time. All my friends are looking on Web sites every which way to find more money.”

Internet scholarship search sites and the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or FAFSA, are two bellwethers of interest in scholarships nationwide.

FastWeb.com, a popular scholarship search site, reported last week that its seasonal spike in Internet traffic this year is at 20 percent, compared with the usual 5 percent to 10 percent.

FAFSA applications are also up nationally. The FAFSA is the first step in applying for federal grants awarded by economic need, federally subsidized loans and many scholarships offered by individual colleges and universities.

At UA, FAFSA applications are up 16.5 percent over last year at this time, said Nametz. ASU has noticed a 40 percent increase, according to Craig Fennell, ASU’s executive director of student financial assistance.

Times are so tight that even nonprofits that don’t provide scholarship assistance are getting pleading phone calls.

“I’m getting a lot of requests from people asking if we can provide scholarship assistance,” said Kelly Langford, president and CEO of the Tucson Urban League Inc.

“And the interesting thing is the requests are beyond the traditional two-year or undergraduate students,” he said. “We’re getting people looking for additional resources to go to trade schools or get retraining. I have to tell them we don’t do that kind of thing.”

While there has been an increase in applications for scholarships – as opposed to merit aid, which is based on grades, or loans, which have to be paid back – donations to funds supporting scholarships are not rising to meet the need, officials said.

“Donations have not gone down, but they haven’t gone up either,” said House, who manages the PCC foundation’s $3.4 million endowment.

“People still see education as an important economic driver that will help the situation get better, so our long-time donors are sticking with us. But we’re not necessarily getting new ones.”

The UA Foundation, which annually funds 1,000 student scholarships, has experienced a drop in giving, said John Brown, UA Foundation communications and marketing director.

“We’ve seen an overall decline in gifts of about 20 percent,” Brown said.

In spite of that, Brown said scholarships remain a popular designation for those who do donate to the foundation, which has an endowment of $225 million.

UA President Robert N. Shelton had proposed a $1,100 surcharge in the fall on top of a $545 tuition increase approved in December, saying he will set aside 17 percent to 20 percent of the revenue generated from the surcharge for financial aid.

Shelton lowered his tuition surcharge request Thursday at the Arizona Board of Regents meeting from $1,100 for all students to $766 for residents and $966 for nonresidents.

He said he was able to lower it because of the federal stimulus money that Gov. Jan Brewer said earlier in the day would be given straight to the regent and university presidents to spend over two years to mitigate the need for a surcharge.

Not all students are convinced that the scholarship “set aside” from the surcharge will help them, however.

“It can’t cover everyone,” said Kelsey LoDuca, a junior at UA. “They say they aren’t going to leave anyone behind with this increase, but . . . in this state, where there are no jobs, to come up with another $1,100 over three months is just too much.”

Shelton, along with presidents from Northern Arizona University and Arizona State University, say the surcharges they are requesting are necessary in light of massive state budget cuts.

The Legislature, needing to make up billions in revenue losses, cut higher education funding by $191 million this year. UA alone took a $77 million hit, and Shelton expects further cuts.

According to a survey released last week by the Association of Governing Board of Universities and Colleges, Arizona has been hit particularly hard by the nationwide economic crisis.

The “Public Institution and University System Financial Conditions Survey” reports that colleges and universities in 14 states, including Arizona, are experiencing their own version of a “misery index” due to three consecutive years of state budget reductions, midyear budget reductions this year and anticipated cuts after July 1.

The state’s economic misery doesn’t mean a lot to students having to pay their bills, though.

Versluis, a junior in hydrology, hopes that he will be able to continue at UA, but he said it all depends on the tuition surcharge.

“The thing that upsets me is they are doing this with only a month left in school,” he said. “I already filed my FAFSA and was awarded a Pell grant and a Safford loan and I figured out I’ve got just enough to cover my tuition, books and the part of my rent not covered by (income from) my job.

“But if I have to pay another $1,100, it really will be a choice of having a roof over my head or going to school.”

University of Arizona students meet with financial aid counselors at the financial aid office inside the Administration Building last week.

———

Scholarship tips

• Start early. Many scholarships have spring deadlines.

• Fill out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, even if you think your family makes too much money. Colleges and some private scholarship providers use the FAFSA to determine scholarship eligibility.

• Check college and university Web sites for scholarship lists.

• Register at FastWeb.com, a free site that allows you to customize your search for scholarships.

• Look for scholarships from your employer, civic groups and the individual school within your college or university.

• Read eligibility requirements carefully. Some organizations discard scholarship applications that are incomplete.

• Check with the financial-aid office at the college or university. They may be able to refer you to scholarships you didn’t know about.

The Arizona Republic

———

Watch those deadlines

• The deadline to apply for scholarships offered through the Pima Community College Foundation is May 29. Call 206-4646 or e-mail foundation@pima.edu for more information.

• The University of Arizona’s Office of Student Financial Aid hosts a scholarship Web site at financialaid.arizona.edu/scholarships/. Deadlines for many of the scholarships have passed, but there are nearly 50 that have deadlines after Friday.

Many of the scholarships have unique restrictions, such as a scholarship only open to those of Greek ancestry or one offered by New Look Laser Tatoo Removal that is only open to students studying nursing, medicine, natural or applied sciences, or engineering.