Citizen Staff Writer
THE FINAL EDITION

RENÉE SCHAFER HORTON

and CARLI BROSSEAU

news@tucsoncitizen.com

Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Tucson late Friday to stop the closure of the Tucson Citizen, which was announced by the Citizen’s owners early Friday.

The lawsuit said closing the Citizen stemmed from an agreement between Gannett and Lee Enterprises Inc., owner of the Arizona Daily Star, to eliminate competition and increase profits to both companies.

The case has been assigned to Judge Raner Collins, but Goddard said in a phone interview Friday night that his staff could not reach Collins to “express the urgency of the case.”

“Usually there is some district judge to handle emergency motions and we are trying to find one,” Goddard said. “But I’m not at all certain we will be able to find one; it is a small panel in Tucson.”

Kate Marymont, vice president of news for the Gannett Co. Inc., told Citizen employees Friday that the last print edition would be Saturday. Gannett will continue to run a “modified” Web site of daily commentary and opinion with a weekly insert of editorial content appearing in the Star, she said.

She said two people accepted positions with www.tucsoncitizen.com but declined to say how many staffers the Web site would eventually hire.

“That’s my starting point,” Marymont said.

A preliminary job description for those hired showed that the site would focus on the “watercooler buzz” of the day.

Staffers would likely link to other Web sites and blogs, offer an opinion and open the discussion to commenters in an online forum. The site would also incorporate social networking, the document showed.

The staff will be responsible for defining the Web site’s form, Marymont said. “I’ve left it to them.”

The recently launched Metromix entertainment hub will continue on a “provisional basis” only, Marymont said.

Gannett’s joint operating agreement with Lee Enterprises Inc. also will terminate Saturday, although the two companies will continue as business partners in Tucson Newspapers, a subsidiary that handles all noneditorial operations for both papers. The JOA has been in effect since 1940.

Under the arrangement, Gannett takes the unusual step of partnering with a newspaper publication in which it has no editorial say to retain its profit interest in the operation.

Lee and Gannett will continue to share equally in the operating costs and profits of Tucson Newspapers, also known as TNI Partners, just as they did with the JOA, CEO Mike Jameson said. TNI, though, will no longer receive the limited antitrust immunity offered JOAs under the Newspaper Preservation Act.

The 1970 act gives newspapers operating under a joint operating agreement an exemption from federal antitrust laws in the hopes of increasing editorial diversity in cities and towns.

The announcement brings to a close months of uncertainty for the paper. Gannett announced in January that it was offering the Citizen archives, Internet domain name and lists of subscribers and advertisers to potential buyers, but not its 50 percent share of the JOA. If no buyer came forward, it intended to close the paper March 21.

On March 17, Gannett delayed the closure, saying “viable” buyers had come forward. The paper has operated on a day-to-day basis since.

Marymont informed Citizen employees of the closure at 9:30 a.m. Friday, about 30 minutes after notifying interim Editor Jennifer Boice.

“This is not about the journalism,” Marymont said. “Do not in any way take this as a reflection on your journalism. You have done outstanding journalism for decades.”

Laid-off employees will receive a week’s pay for every year they’ve worked for the paper up to 26 weeks, with a two-week minimum.

Boice, who has worked at the Citizen for 25 years and was appointed interim editor in July, could not hold back tears when making the announcement

“It’s been a difficult time,” Boice said. “But it’s also been fun. We’ve had people, even when our time was limited, going all out on stories, doing an incredible job of keeping the newspaper not only going, but good. And I am really grateful to all the people here who have put forth their heart and soul and energy in letting us go out with our head held high.”

Goddard was informed of the Citizen’s pending closure when Stephen Hadland, CEO of the Santa Monica Media Co. and the final bidder in the sale, wrote a letter Friday morning asking Goddard to intervene.

“The Tucson Citizen has been systematically destroyed by its owners and I believe it remains a viable and popular newspaper in the community,” he wrote.

Goddard said Hadland’s request was compelling, especially after he spoke with Gannett representatives.

“Their lawyer was unable to tell me how the proposed Web site would serve Tucson as a separate editorial voice,” Goddard said. “We took action because there was nothing in front of us that indicated any commitment to a vigorous continuing presence for the Citizen in some form.”

Reached Friday at his Santa Monica office, Hadland said, “We were, we are and we remain a bona fide buyer. We made a substantial cash offer; we later amended the offer to close to half a million dollars and were told that nothing less than $800,000 would be acceptable.”

In addition, Hadland said, he was “amazed” that Gannett was shutting the printed paper and going to an online-only operation because during negotiations, “a printed edition was an absolute requirement of Gannett’s.”

“This is the biggest perversion of the Newspaper Preservation Act that I have ever witnessed,” said Hadland, who publishes five weekly papers in the Los Angeles area.

Goddard said the arrangement between Gannett and Lee did not, in his mind, “meet either the spirit or the intent of the (antitrust) exemption” granted through the federal act.

The U.S. Justice Department began an investigation into the sale of the Citizen in February, when potential buyers told Justice representatives they were being told by Gannett’s sales broker that the Citizen wasn’t a good deal because Gannett wasn’t selling its interest in the JOA.

Marymont confirmed discussions with Justice were ongoing for the past month, but would not say Justice insisted on having a Web site instead of completely closing the Citizen’s presence in Tucson.

She said Gannett had not determined the length of commitment to the new Web site, and that there “is no legal document” saying the site has to remain operational for a certain time.

“In our conversations with the Justice Department, it was agreed that it was important we sustain a second voice in the community,” Marymont said.

Justice Department spokeswoman Gina Talamona said Friday that Justice “closed its investigation today and no enforcement action was taken.” She would give no further details.

National media experts had predicted the paper would never sell because, without the JOA, the Citizen was all loss and no profit.

Thus the paper appeared poised to be another casualty of a newspaper industry struggling to survive amid declining advertising revenue and Internet competition.

But the Citizen defied the odds, at least for a while, because of the federal investigation.

At least five people expressed interest in buying the Citizen. All decided against bidding when they couldn’t persuade Gannett to include the JOA in the sale.

The Citizen was started in 1870 as a weekly, the Arizona Citizen, preceding Arizona’s statehood. Its reporters were on the front lines covering everything from the raids of Pancho Villa to the first university-led space mission.

In its last two months, the paper reported on its own predicted demise.

“A newspaper doesn’t close, it dies, and the death leaves a hole in the community,” said Boice.

Judge may weigh in on print edition of Tucson Citizen

Continued from 2A

Other troubled newspapers

• Hearst Corp. printed the last edition of Seattle’s oldest newspaper, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, on March 16, turning it into an Internet-only news outlet with 20 staff members, down from more than 150.

• E.W. Scripps Co. in February closed the 150-year-old Rocky Mountain News, one of two daily newspapers in Denver.

• Employees of the San Francisco Chronicle were told in February to prepare for closure or massive layoffs.

• The Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune and The Philadelphia Inquirer sought Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in recent months.

• The Ann Arbor News announced in April it will close in July. In its place, the Web-based media company AnnArbor.com LLC will be launched, publishing continuously online and a print edition twice a week. About 272 employees remain at the News, and experts estimate that will fall to fewer than 50 for the Web venture.

Citizen Staff Writer

RENÉE SCHAFER HORTON

rshorton@tucsoncitizen.com

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.

Citizen Staff Writer

RENÉE SCHAFER HORTON

rshorton@tucsoncitizen.com

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.

Citizen Staff Writer

RENÉE SCHAFER HORTON

rshorton@tucsoncitizen.com

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.

Citizen Staff Writer

RENÉE SCHAFER HORTON

rshorton@tucsoncitizen.com

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 rapper 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.”

Citizen Staff Writer

RENÉE SCHAFER HORTON

rshorton@tucsoncitizen.com

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.

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 shake-up at UA, which resulted in closing numerous underenrolled 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.

Citizen Staff Writer

RENÉE SCHAFER HORTON

rshorton@tucsoncitizen.com

University of Arizona football coach Mike Stoops will earn $1 million for the 2009 season and get a $100,000 raise each of the following four years, under a new contract extension approved by the Arizona Board of Regents.

The decision was not unanimous. Regents voted 6 to 1 Thursday to approve Stoops’ pay increase, with Dennis DeConcini voting against it.

“I find it hard to believe we’re going to approve this when we’re facing the (economic) problems we’re facing now,” DeConcini said.

The money will be paid by the UA athletic department, which operates independently from the rest of the university.

UA President Robert N. Shelton said bumping Stoop’s salary from $685,000 to $1 million would put him near 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.

Stoops, 47, led UA to an 8-5 record last season and a victory over BYU in the Las Vegas Bowl – the Wildcats’ first postseason appearance, a win, in 10 years. Stoops, 25-34 in five seasons, made $685,288 a year in his old contract.

His base salary in 2009 will be $500,000 and he will make $500,000 for peripheral and related duties. His extension is until 2013, when he will make $1.4 million a year if he stays that long.

UA also is scheduled to pay new basketball coach Sean Miller $2 million a year as part of a five-year deal worth $11 million.

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.’ ”

Under his new contract, Stoops would stand to make up to an additional $655,000 a year if he reaches these incentives:

• Athletic: Participation in a preseason game, $50,000; Pac-10 champion, $125,000; non-BCS bowl game, $75,000; BCS bowl other than national title game, $100,000; BCS national title game, $150,000

• BCS national rankings: 1-10, $50,000; 11-15, $40,000; 16-25; $30,000.

• Win-loss record for 12-game season (excludes preseason or bowls): 7-5, $40,000; 8-4, $50,000; 9-3, $60,000; 10-2, $70,000; 11-1, $80,000; 12-0, $90,000.

• Average home paid attendance: 48,001-50,000, $45,000; 50,000-plus, $60,0000

• Total season tickets sold: 35,000-40,000, $60,000; 40,000-45,000, $70,000; 45,001-plus, $80,000

• Coach of the year honors: Pac-10, $30,000; national, $50,000

If UA fires Stoops for cause, it is liable for salary due at the date of termination. If UA fires Stoops without cause, it must pay him one-half of the remaining value of the guaranteed compensation. If Stoops leaves before 2013, he must pay UA $250,000 in liquidated damages at Shelton’s discretion.

HOW THEY COMPARE

Estimated annual salaries of Pac-10 football coaches, not including incentives, according to published reports:

Coach, school Yearly salary

Pete Carroll, USC $4 million

Jeff Tedford, Cal $1.85 million

Steve Sarkisian, Wash. $1.75 million

Chip Kelly, Oregon $1.4 million

Rick Neuheisel, UCLA $1.25 million

Dennis Erickson, ASU $1.1 million

Mike Riley, Oregon St. $1.1 million

Mike Stoops, UA $1 million

Jim Harbaugh, Stanford $1 million

Paul Wulff, Washington St. $600,000

Citizen Staff Writer

RENÉE SCHAFER HORTON

rshorton@tucsoncitizen.com

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

Citizen Staff Writer

RENÉE SCHAFER HORTON

rshorton@tucsoncitizen.com

Pima Community College Chancellor Roy Flores announced late last month that the No. 1 step in dealing with state budget cuts would be reducing administrative positions.

The first evidence of that is a shakeup at the East and West campuses, effective July 1, reducing the number of division deans from seven to five.

Thomas Tomasky and Ricardo Castro-Salazar, the two East Campus division deans, will return to faculty positions, according to an e-mail sent to West Campus employees Friday.

West Campus President Lou Albert sent the e-mail, explaining that just one of the East Campus dean positions would be filled as the college tries “to reduce expenses while maintaining services for our students and our community” in light of state budget cuts and declining real estate values.

The college is funded through tuition, property taxes and state allocations.

The lone East Campus dean position will be filled by John Gillis, who is division dean of the health-related professions and the fitness and sport sciences programs at the West Campus, Albert wrote.

Gillis’ responsibilities will be redistributed among the four division deans remaining after he leaves.

Gillis said the move made sense because East Campus needed a dean and West Campus had a surfeit.

“It’s making a decision that benefits the wider college,” Gillis said.

Castro-Salazar said Wednesday the move to a faculty position was his choice.

“The main consideration was my family,” he said. “My wife is in a Ph.D. program at (the University of Arizona) and I want to be able to support her and we have a 2-year-old. The chancellor is being very wise and very humane in the way he has approached this whole (budget cut) issue, including personal decisions into his equations.”

Tomasky did not return calls seeking comment and college spokeswoman Rachelle Howell did not know if his return to a faculty position was voluntary.

Albert said Wednesday that the redeployment will cause the remaining deans to “work a little harder and certainly smarter,” but he appreciated managing the budget cuts with attrition and realignment rather than layoffs or furloughs.

“I’m convinced this is a way we can save some money and still not miss a beat,” Albert said.

He did not know exactly how much money would be saved by losing one dean position. Howell said specifics on money saved were not immediately available.

Howell said the shifting of deans is just “one piece of a large, complex picture” of Pima’s attempts to deal with more than $5 million in state budget cuts this year.

Other measures include travel restrictions, deferring replacing equipment, eliminating noncritical employee training and a hiring freeze on all nonfaculty positions.

The measures are taken to prevent layoffs and furloughs, Howell said.

The college board passed a $2 per credit hour tuition increase last month upon advice from Flores that, without it, staff would have to be laid off or take furlough days.

Howell said there have been no other reductions in division deans at the college’s four other campuses. Those campuses have between one and three division deans, according to PCC’s Web site.

Citizen Staff Writer
FINDING MONEY FOR COLLEGE

RENÉE SCHAFER HORTON

rshorton@tucsoncitizen.com

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, who is asking for a $1,100 surcharge in the fall on top of a $545 tuition increase approved in December, has said he will set aside 17 percent to 20 percent of the revenue generated from the surcharge for financial aid.

If the surcharge is approved, tuition and mandatory fees for in-state undergraduate students will be more than $7,100 next year.

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, 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’s 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.”

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.

Citizen Staff Writer
IN BRIEF

The University of Arizona Poetry Center will host a memorial tribute to alumnus David Foster Wallace on Friday.

Wallace, who the Los Angeles Times called “one of the most influential and innovative writers of the last 20 years,” graduated from UA’s creative writing masters of fine arts program in 1987.

He committed suicide in September, after years of clinical depression.

Panel discussions of Wallace’s work will begin at 2 and 3:30 p.m. at the UA Poetry Center, 1508 E. Helen St. The tribute will conclude with an 8 p.m. reading of Wallace’s work.

Wallace wrote a number of books, including “Brief Interviews with Hideous Men” and “Infinite Jest.” His unfinished novel “The Pale King” will be published next spring by Little, Brown.

RENÉE SCHAFER HORTON

rshorton@tucsoncitizen.com

Citizen Staff Writer

RENÉE SCHAFER HORTON

rshorton@tucsoncitizen.com

A proposed tuition increase at Arizona’s three public universities will highlight the Arizona Board of Regents meeting at the University of Arizona this week.

The regents will vote on the “economic recovery surcharge” for UA, Northern Arizona University and Arizona State University on Thursday morning.

UA proposes a $1,100 tuition surcharge for all students, in addition to differential tuition increases or program fees in the colleges of Medicine and Nursing.

NAU is proposing a $494 tuition and mandatory fee surcharge, and ASU is proposing a $1,240 tuition and mandatory surcharge.

The surcharges would be reviewed annually and bring in $94.5 million to the university system next year, according to board documents. The majority of the money raised would be at ASU, which would get $60 million through its surcharge.

UA estimates the tuition surcharge and differential tuition in the colleges of Medicine and Nursing would generate $29.4 million. NAU estimates generating slightly more than $5 million.

All revenue estimates are after setting aside 17 percent to 20 percent of the surcharges for financial aid.

The university presidents say surcharges are necessary to make up the difference between what they expect to get from the federal stimulus package and the $191 million in state budget cuts made this academic year.

The surcharges would bring tuition at the universities above the ceiling previously set by the board for tuition and mandatory fees.

The regents will also vote on a one-year exception to board policy that requires tuition and fees remain in the bottom one-third of rates set by the nation’s 50 senior public universities.

The state student association opposes the increases, saying they violate student trust and tuition-setting policy. The regents approved tuition increases for fall 2009 during their December 2008 meeting.

The regents are also being asked to consider but not yet vote on raising the threshold at which special course fees must be brought before the board for approval.

Course fees pay for various costs associated with a particular course, including field trips, specialized equipment use, private instruction or selected personnel expenses, according to board documents.

Current board policy requires that any course fee of more than $50 receive board approval. Leaders at each of the universities want the ceiling raised to $100.

The board would vote on the item at its June meeting and, if approved, new fees of less than $100 could be instituted at each university’s discretion for any course in the 2010-11 academic year.

At UA, 1,426 courses – 8 percent to 9 percent of total courses offered this year – have fees. Nearly $1.3 million was generated from those fees this year.

The regents will consider the universities’ 2009-10 academic strategic plans and vote whether to amend and extend the multiyear contract of UA head football coach Mike Stoops.

Stoops, whose base salary and incentive pay is $685,288, would receive a raise to $1 million effective in July, with a $100,000 annual raise for the next four years.

If you go

What: Arizona Board of Regents meeting

When: 9:30 a.m.-4 p.m. Thursday; 9:30-11:30 a.m. Friday

Where: Student Union Memorial Center, North Ballroom

A look at UA’s proposal

• $1,100 tuition surcharge per student

• Eliminate cohort pricing for the College of Medicine, bringing tuition to $21,618 for the 560 students at both campuses. Current tuition ranges from $18,198 to $20,168 depending on when the student entered the college.

• Establish an annual differential tuition of $2,000 for junior and senior nursing students in the bachelor of science nursing program.

• Raise annual tuition in the nursing doctorate program from $4,000 to $5,200.

• Establish a set program fee of $28,000 for the 14-month accelerated bachelor of science nursing program.

Citizen Staff Writer

RENÉE SCHAFER HORTON

rshorton@tucsoncitizen.com

Faced with a growing number of confirmed cases of swine flu in the U.S., the University of Arizona has recommended that students, staff and faculty avoid all “nonessential” travel south of the border.

Paul Allvin, associate vice president, university communications, said UA is not defining what is nonessential travel.

“It is up to each person who needs to travel to Mexico to decide if it is absolutely something they must do,” Allvin said.

“And then, if they feel it is essential, they need to monitor their health,” Allvin said.

An advisory was posted on the UA Web site Monday afternoon saying travel is discouraged in light of recommendations from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

If UA community members choose to travel to Mexico, the advisory asked for caution upon return to Tucson.

“Out of concern for their own health and for the health of those with whom they live and work, UA faculty, staff or students who choose to travel to Mexico are expected to monitor their health closely for seven days following their return,” it read.

The advisory also offered flu prevention measures, based on tips from the CDC and the World Health Organization, Allvin said.

“Wash your hands, cover your mouth if you sneeze or cough and stay away from others if you feel sick,” he said. “We’re bombarding the campus with that message. . . . We want to make people aware without alarming them.”

Allvin said doctors at University Medical Center and Campus Health Services are “monitoring very closely” the students who might come in complaining of illness.

“We will be taking our lead from the county Health Department. But we’re certainly on the lookout for any students who look ill.”

Meanwhile, other UA officials are trying to catalog the different connections students, staff or faculty might have in Mexico, Allvin said.

The UA Outreach College and the College of Agriculture follow most of the cross-border research, Allvin said, but UA is also concerned with UA students who are from Mexico, UA study abroad students in Mexico and students, faculty and staff who have relatives south of the border.

Citizen Staff Writer
RealFAST LOCAL NEWS

RENÉE SCHAFER HORTON

rshorton@tucsoncitizen.com

The Tucson Citizen will publish at least through May 9.

Kate Marymont, vice president/news for Gannett Co. Inc., told interim editor Jennifer Boice that nothing would happen regarding sale or closure of the Citizen before May 9.

Gannett, which owns the Citizen, announced Jan. 16 that it was putting the assets of the newpaper up for sale and would close the paper March 21 if no buyer was found.

Negotiations with potential buyers went beyond that date and Citizen employees were told they were publishing on a “day to day” basis.

A Justice Department spokeswoman said an investigation of the Citizen’s sale is ongoing, but would not say what the department is investigating.

Citizen Staff Writer

RENÉE SCHAFER HORTON

rshorton@tucsoncitizen.com

Meredith Hay couldn’t have won a popularity contest this past year at the University of Arizona even if she had wanted to – massive state budget cuts made sure of that.

But Hay, 47, never assumed she’d be the most popular UA administrator when she accepted the job of provost a year ago.

“We don’t make decisions based on popularity,” the Texas native said in a recent interview. “It’s not about a popularity contest. It’s about advancing the university.”

As second in command at Arizona’s primary research university, Hay is UA’s chief operating officer, the holder of the purse strings and the person at whom faculty and staff – right or wrong – pointed accusatory fingers as she spearheaded UA’s largest reorganization.

Since September, Hay has been the face of hard choices at a university besieged by a plummeting economy and state budget cuts. She’s championed higher tuition, college mergers, program elimination and a general call to identify and build on UA’s strengths and “set aside” programs no longer useful to UA’s mission.

It hasn’t been an easy job – the decision to pursue a tuition surcharge of nearly $1,100 in the fall has been particularly difficult, Hay said, but she has no regrets about taking the position.

“Heavens, no,” Hay said. “I am thrilled to be here, thrilled to be part of the UA team. . . . It’s a crisis in the economy, but it’s also an incredible opportunity for the University of Arizona to position itself strategically to be stronger than it ever has been before. It’s a thrilling opportunity.”

President Robert N. Shelton announced his plans to end business as usual at UA last September. He charged Hay with overseeing what she christened “the Transformation Plan,” an attempt to shore up UA academic excellence while reducing costs.

Hay took the challenge and asked – some say demanded – that deans and department heads find ways to transform their units to reduce overhead and raise revenue. She was firm in her timeline, wanting full proposals developed in less than three months and changes implemented by spring.

It wasn’t a popular move among academics used to months of planning for something as small as a course-name change.

At town halls held across campus to discuss the Transformation Plan, faculty accused Hay of creating a climate of fear, and staff employees said she was out of touch with their role at UA.

No one was denying the need for change in light of state budget cuts of nearly $80 million. But many in the UA community seemed to think Hay was moving too quickly.

Faculty Senate leaders called for all the transformation steps to be vetted through normal Senate processes and, so doing, slowed Hay’s timeline somewhat. That minimal slowdown – mergers and consolidations were indeed announced this spring – has caused some of the early push-back to Hay’s processes to wane.

Most deans, department heads and leading faculty contacted did not return phone calls seeking comment about the provost. Many of her critics would not speak on the record.

“She’s doing what she has to do, but there are others who might have done it differently,” Maurice Sevigny, dean of the College of Fine Arts, said when announcing his retirement last week. Sevigny’s college is being absorbed into a mega-unit called the Colleges of Arts, Letters and Sciences, the most prominent result of the Transformation Plan.

Faculty Senate Chair Wanda Howell, who works closely with Hay as mergers and consolidations make their way through the Senate’s approval process, concurred.

“It’s a stylistic thing,” Howell said. “She had some issues related to her communication style at first but she’s learned very rapidly about our specific culture. The bull in the china shop just doesn’t work here.”

But Hay works and works, completely focused on the mission Shelton gave her nearly nine months ago.

“She never sleeps,” said Shelton, Hay’s biggest supporter. “Her first year has been nothing short of spectacular. She has led a number of complicated, thorny processes that were extremely difficult to do. Meredith is decisive and I like that. We have to get things done.”

Strong academic credentials

At 6 feet tall, Hay can be intimidating just by standing in a room. Her academic credentials are also impressive: internationally known for research in cardiovascular neurobiology, a member of advisory committees for NASA and scientific organizations, vice president for research at the University of Iowa. And when she launches into one of her no-nonsense, change-is-coming speeches, it is easy to see how feathers can get ruffled.

“I will admit I have raised expectations and I think I make my expectations very clear,” Hay said. Pausing briefly, she conceded there may have been rough spots, and if she could clone herself, her other self would be assigned solely to communication.

“Because every time I think I’m communicating enough, I need to double my efforts,” she explained. “But that’s always true: You cannot communicate enough in an environment this complex. If there’s anything I always tell myself, it’s ‘Are we communicating enough? Are we communicating the right messages and are we making sure everybody’s voices are heard?’ And it’s a process because we’re all human beings.”

A town hall Shelton hosted for faculty to discuss the Transformation Plan last October illustrated those communication difficulties.

One after another, faculty stood and confronted Shelton and Hay about what they perceived as a race to leave no department unmerged.

They also cited a fear of retribution created by rumors that Hay had told deans they needed to offer programs for closure or she’d choose for them.

Hay protested those assessments at the town hall, saying that every voice was valued, that suggestions had been solicited through the Transformation White Papers process and that there was no predetermined number of mergers.

“Provost, we must be living in a different university because that is the message that is getting communicated and we are all planning that way,” said Gary Rhoades, then director of UA’s Center for the Study of Higher Education.

Rhoades took a year’s leave in January to become the general secretary of the American Association of University Professors.

While the original impression might have been that Hay was on a different page than the rest of the UA community, Randy Livingston, president of the UA’s Staff Advisory Council, said that perception changed with familiarity.

“We had to learn how to understand her and the situation she was brought into and she had to learn a lot about us,” Livingston said. “She came in at a tough time and had a mission to do and it was a little rough at first, but it seems to be a smoother road ahead.”

That smoother road may have as much to do with the economic reality of Arizona as it does with Hay being a quick study on UA shared-governance processes and communication styles.

“If you think about it, we started this Transformation Plan before the crash of the world economy,” Hay said. “When we set the stage, there was a little bit of skepticism. But as the economy came into focus, I think there was a reality-facing amongst the entire university that we have got to change the way we do business.”

For people who share Hay’s sense of urgency, she’s a breath of fresh air.

“She makes decisions; everything is not a long-term study,” said Jeffrey Goldberg, interim dean of the College of Engineering. “But I like that. I like people doing stuff. So, OK, if you’re going to actually do things, you’re going to tick some people off.”

Student body President Tommy Bruce also said he supports Hay’s assertiveness.

“She’s a powerhouse,” he said. “Yes, there’s a certain culture at UA and she had to learn that, but a lot of provosts take forever to get something done. The definition of time is different for her. She doesn’t believe in dilly-dallying.”

The changes are already being launched, and by the fall, UA will look markedly different. There will be new schools and departments created by mergers and consolidations, and – courtesy of those massive state cuts – larger class sizes and more graduate assistants filling in for unfunded faculty lines.

UA leaders say the mergers will save at least $3 million in overhead and administrative costs as fewer business managers, secretaries and advisers are needed. Also, by leveraging and combining resources across units, the newly created schools and colleges become more competitive in the search for millions available in federal grants.

While Hay may be known for her results-oriented manner, she will backstep if needed, as she did in October after informing deans that available departmental budget balances from state funds would be swept into a centralized fund. That action shifted spending authority over those previously allocated state dollars from individual colleges to Hay’s office.

Deans protested and a story in UA’s student newspaper focusing on the money swept from the College of Architecture and Landscape Architecture brought the action to everyone’s attention. Hay reversed the decision within 48 hours with a campuswide e-mail that said “Deans and Vice Presidents will manage the savings drawn from their reporting units.”

Brooks Jeffery, associate dean for the College of Architecture and Landscape Architecture, cited that action as evidence of how Hay has climbed the learning curve with historic speed “in the most challenging of years.”

“She’s been very respectful of our college, understanding the autonomy of units like ours,” Jeffery said. “To her credit, she’s a quick study and picks things up and understands it. She is laser-focused on the mission of the university and makes sure the colleges understand their role in that mission.”

Shelton said there were a few bumps as Hay adjusted to UA, but that is normal for new administrators. And he emphasized that he and Hay are in agreement where hard decisions are concerned.

“It is true of anyone that they have to learn the culture of the institution and how projects get done,” he said. “Each locale has its own dynamic, but I view the president-provost relationship as us being on exactly the same page and that’s how it is with Meredith. There was no one saying to the deans, ‘I’ll force you to do this,’ while the other one was saying, ‘Poor baby.’”

Supporter of the arts

Hay was born in Houston, the middle of three children who loved to explore the great outdoors.

“I was always interested in figuring out why things work,” Hay said.

As an undergraduate at the University of Colorado, she had an epiphany that sealed her fate in science – figuring out how the brain works.

“I took my first course in neuroscience and in the textbook was a photograph of an action potential, which is a recording of the electrical activity of a single neuron or brain cell,” she recalled. “From that point I was hooked and knew I wanted to spend my life understanding how the brain works.”

Her father, a dentist, died when Hay was 10, but her mother still lives in Houston and she goes back to visit as frequently as she can.

“For me, what keeps you going are those things that keep you centered,” she said. “And what’s really important? It’s the people. It’s always been about the people in your life that make a difference.”

At UA, Hay said, it is still all about the people.

“Getting to tour laboratories or studios or seeing HarpFusion last night, you’re just overwhelmed by the creativity of the faculty and the students,” she said. “And it’s in those moments that you know everything is going to be all right, that the world is going to keep turning, that the university is going to be fantastic because we have some tremendous people, students, faculty and staff.”

HarpFusion is the largest touring concert harp ensemble in the world and is based at UA’s School of Music in the College of Fine Arts. Speaking about the group, Hay lit up, enthusiastically proclaiming that science and technology might advance and improve human life, but “it’s the arts and the literature that makes it worth living.”

Hay’s zeal no doubt comes as good news to the half of campus not dedicated to the “hard sciences,” a contingent that has privately worried that a university led by two scientists in the midst of massive budget cuts would leave non-science programs particularly vulnerable to dismantling.

Hay said she understands the concern, but it is unnecessary.

As evidence, Hay said she created the Provost’s Advisory Council on the Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences last week to bring together select faculty to “ask the big questions.”

“Where can we be world class? Where should we move forward? It’s an exciting conversation,” she said.

That question – where can UA be world class – is what drives the entire Transformation Plan conversation, and Hay herself, at this point.

“We are going to protect those programs that we are truly world class in,” she said. “Our ranked programs are going to be protected and advanced. Those programs that, with some investment and some protection could become world-class, we’re going to invest in those areas. And then the really hard decisions are, ‘What are the things that we’re not going to do anymore? What are the things that the University of Arizona, given the current (economic) situation, we cannot afford to enter the market and be world-class?’ If you can’t be the best, if you can’t be world-class, we shouldn’t do it.”

‘She never sleeps. Her first year has been nothing short of spectacular.’

Robert N. Shelton,

UA president

Title: UA executive vice president and provost

Age: 47

Salary: $350,000

Family: Hay calls her two horses and eight dogs her “adopted/rescued children.”

Education: B.A. in psychology from University of Colorado; masters in neurobiology and doctorate in cardiovascular pharmacology from University of Texas-San Antonio.

Academic highlight: Internationally known for her research in cardiovascular neurobiology and the role of sex differences in hypertension development.

Currently reading: “Audition: A Memoir” by Barbara Walters, and “The Way of the World: A Story of Truth and Hope in an Age of Extremism” by Ron Suskind.

How she recharges: Riding her horse, Cody, and hiking in the Tucson Mountains

Biggest surprise this year: “Other than a 26 percent cut in the general fund? I think that qualifies as a big surprise.”