2012-11-09

              First year Inez White learned
last Monday, Nov. 5 that she owed
Illinois Wesleyan University $800
by Thursday, Nov. 8, or the ad-ministration
would put a hold on
her registration.
White, who had received a
book voucher to pay for her ex-pensive
chemistry and Spanish
textbooks, knew she had to pay
back the money eventually. What
surprised her was that she had to
do it so suddenly.
“On Monday morning, I got a
call from my mom. She told me
that she had called the Business
Office for an unrelated reason,
and they told her that I owed the
school $800 by Thursday” White
said. “I didn’t receive any notice
beforehand that I had to pay the
voucher back so quickly.”
IWU had sent notices to the
Chicago address they had on
file about her need to pay off
the voucher. There was only one
problem: all of the mail was sent
to the wrong address.
“I changed addresses due to a
family situation and went to go
live my mom” White said. “IWU
sent nearly all of my mail to the
new address, but they were send-ing
the financial mail to my old
address.”
White did not receive any email
notification of the fact that she
needed to pay back the voucher. A
search of her email account turned
up no notices from either the Fi-nancial
Aid Office or Business Of-fice
on the matter.
But that’s not what mystified
White the most.
“I handle everything about
my finances” said White, a first-generation
college student. “Why
would they send information to
Chicago when they could have
sent it right to my mailbox in
Dolan? I mean, it’s right across
the street.”
At the root of the problem, says
White, isn’t the fact that she need-ed
to pay back the voucher sooner
than expected. It was the lack of
information she received regard-ing
her financial aid package.
“A good majority of students
on financial aid who I talked to
don’t understand their package,
especially first-years,” White said.
Junior Josefina Banales is fa-miliar
with White’s situation.
“What’s frustrating is when no
one can explain to me what’s hap-pening
with my account” Banales
said. “One time, I was up $2000,
then next time I checked, I was
down $800. No one in the Busi-ness
Office could articulate to me
what happened.”
Banales, like White, is also a
first-generation college student,
and she feels IWU needs to pay
more attention to this growing de-mographic.
Though IWU does not keep
official statistics, the Admissions
Office asks incoming students
to mark whether or not they are
first-generation college students
on their IWU application. Accord-ing
to Dean of Admissions Tony
Bankston, 19 percent of the Class
of 2013 marked that their parents
had not attended college, while 26
percent of the Class of 2016 did
the same.
“While this question does not
guarantee that each of these stu-dents
is truly ‘first generation,’
I think it is safe to assume that
we have seen an increase in both
our number and percentage of
likely first-generation students,”
Bankston said.
Associate Dean of Student Af-fairs
Darcy Greder also noticed
the rise in number of first-gener-ation
college students.
“For the first time this year,
Resident Assistant training in-cluded
a seminar on first-genera-tion
college students” Greder said.
“We’ve done a good job diversify-ing
our campus along ethnic lines,
but we’re still working on diver-sifying
it along socioeconomic
lines as well. And with that comes
growing pains.”
Another first-generation col-lege
student, a junior who wished
to remain anonymous, understood.
“Sometimes I get an email that
tells me I need to pay more mon-ey.
When I go to Holmes to figure
out why, I bounce back and forth
between the Financial Aid Office
and the Business Office with no
real resolution. This has happened
every semester I’ve been here.”
Much of the frustration stems
from students feeling shuttled be-tween
the Business Office and the
Financial Aid Office.
Though the two departments
communicate, they handle dif-ferent
aspects of IWU finance.
The Business Office deals with
the billing of a student, while the
Financial Aid Office tries to find
ways for students to acquire loans
or a work study position.
FEATURES, P. 8 SPORTS, BACK PAGE
Miscommunication hinders financial literacy
Fall sports round-up
Two viewpoints on
Obama’s victory
OPINIONS, P11
SEE FINANCIAL AID P. 3
PHOTO COURTESY OF MARC FEATHERLY
blogs.iwu.edu/argus/
Volume 119 | Issue 9
November 9, 2012
World champion Judah Friedlander
NICK DESIDERI
NEWS EDITOR
The Student Awareness
Events Commission is present-ing
two major events on campus
next week.
On Monday, Nov. 12, the
Commission and Feminism:
Equality Matters (F:EM) are
bringing nationally-recognized
speaker Jaclyn Friedman to
Hansen at 7 p.m. Friedman is a
founder and the Executive Di-rector
of Women, Action and
the Media, as well as an advo-cate
for women’s rights on cam-puses
across the country.
The event is entitled “What
You Really Really Want: How
to Pursue a Real Sexuality in
the Real World.” It includes an
introductory talk, Q&A session
and meeting with campus lead-ers.
F:EM member Christina
Palutsis points out the impor-tance
of hosting discussions
about consent on college cam-puses.
“This isn’t an issue that a lot
of people address, so I think it
is important to have someone
on campus who will talk about
these issues,” Palutsis said.
Friedman’s talk kicks off a
busy week for the Awareness
Events Commission, which is
also hosting the second annual
IWU Next Talk on Thursday,
Nov. 15 in the Hansen Student
Center at 7 p.m.
In a similar format to TED
talks, IWU Next gives speakers
a platform to address issues fac-ing
our campus.
TED is a national conference
promoting “ideas worth spread-ing,”
and IWU is putting its own
spin on the event through IWU
Next. The speakers are drawn
from various groups around
campus and will each deliver
an original five to 10 minute
speech.
“I think IWU Next is a phe-nomenal
event that lets stu-dents,
faculty, and staff come
together and discuss topics they
are truly passionate about,” Stu-dent
Senate President Rachel
Paturi said.
The event includes speeches
from Senior Class President
Teddy Delicath, Professor Mi-chael
Weis of the History De-partment
and Director of the
Wesleyan Fund Jeff Mavros,
as well as from various student
leaders. Because of IWU Next’s
open structure, speakers have a
lot of flexibility to talk to the
campus.
Event organizer and Aware-ness
Events Commissioner
Danny Kenny said, “I am re-ally
excited about IWU Next
as I believe it is going to offer
the exact kind of liberal arts
education that IWU prides itself
on. We have a diverse group of
speakers that are all experts in
their own right, and I hope our
campus takes advantage of what
is sure to be an enlightening ex-perience.”
Speakers seek to raise social awareness
KATIE ROSE BROSNAN
STAFF REPORTER
“It’s convenient that the Financial Aid Office and the Business Office are both in Holmes” said Seibring