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Media Relations

Bloomington Herald-Times

March 13, 2006

Audit faults IU department for employing two lawmakers; IU's labor studies created 'impression of impropriety,' audit finds
By Steve Hinnefeld
March 12, 2006

BLOOMINGTON — The Indiana University Division of Labor Studies created an "impression of impropriety" and put IU at risk of bad publicity and political backlash by employing two state legislators, an audit found.

An August 2005 report by IU's internal audit office also said former labor studies director Charles Davis violated IU payroll policies and possibly federal labor rules by failing to oversee the legislators and make sure they accounted for the hours they worked.

The audit was inconclusive on whether there was "ghost employment" — paying Democratic Reps. John Aguilera and Ron Liggett for work they didn't do.

"We were unable to conclude that there was ghost employment because of the ambiguities surrounding the director's categorization of the positions," it said.

Davis strongly disputed the findings in a written rebuttal, calling the audit "an exercise in overzealousness."

He said he hired the legislators to help labor studies secure worker-training grants, not to influence legislation. He said the audit used his words out of context to suggest he was trying to influence the state budget by hiring legislators.

His failing, Davis said, "was simply one of insufficient oversight."

Aguilera, D-East Chicago, and Liggett, D-Redkey, worked for labor studies from August 2003 to November 2004 and were paid $65,800 a year. They were not interviewed for the audit and were not identified in the report. Both disputed the audit's findings.

Liggett, a construction company owner, said he worked hard to secure training grants on behalf of labor studies.

"I know we were giving it 110 percent, and the results showed that," said Liggett, who lost his House seat in 2004 and is trying to win it back in this year's election.

He said he often worked more than 40 hours a week traveling around the state, calling on businesses and unions and looking for training opportunities.

"It was helping a lot of working families," he said.

Aguilera issued a statement through his attorney, Lance Ryskamp of Highland, saying he wasn't aware of the audit until it was completed. Aguilera said he met with IU President Adam Herbert about the matter and provided information to IU rebutting the audit findings.

Time sheet problems

The audit said one legislator secured four training grants worth a total of $487,978. The other didn't secure any grants but had one awaiting approval when his job ended, it said.

The legislators were classified as hourly employees but didn't turn in all the biweekly time sheets required by IU policy. The audit said they should have each turned in 34 time sheets; one turned in two, the other 20. It said paying the legislators without requiring time sheets "violated IU policy and may have violated FLSA (Fair Labor Standards Act) regulations."

It also faulted labor studies for using $26,188 from training grants to help pay one legislator's wages. It said IU might need to repay the money to the state, if the expenditure was found to be inappropriate.

The audit said one legislator was overpaid $1,268 for mileage. And it said the payment of $200 a month in cell-phone reimbursements to one legislator "appears to be extravagant."

Davis, who declined a request for an interview, became director of the division in 2001 after serving as labor-relations director for the Minnesota Nurses Association. He resigned last September as director but remains a tenured professor of labor studies at IU-Purdue University at Indianapolis, paid $113,000 a year.

In a resignation letter, Davis said the division had "unprecedented" success during his tenure, but circumstances, including the audit and "a financial crisis not of our making," caused it to be in the division's best interest for him to resign.

Labor studies is based at IUPUI but has programs at all IU campuses, including Bloomington. It offers degree programs, for-credit courses and union training.

Faculty leaders in labor studies said a majority of the faculty supported the audit's findings and welcomed Davis' resignation.

Professor complained

Herbert ordered the audit in response to a complaint from a labor studies faculty member, said university spokesman Larry MacIntyre. The auditors were Terry Radke, director of IU internal audits; and Kevin Keough, audit manager.

IU sent the report to the State Board of Accounts. Jan Correll, supervisor of university audits, said the agency has begun looking at the report but hasn't reached any conclusions.

The decision to employ Aguilera and Liggett was made in the summer of 2003, according to the audit report and Davis' response.

Ken Zeller, the president of the Indiana AFL-CIO, suggested in a meeting with Davis that labor studies hire the legislators in an effort to become more involved with economic development. The idea was that they would help get grants from the state Incumbent Worker Training Fund. Labor studies would administer the grants.

Davis said he told a high-level IUPUI administrator he was hiring the legislators.

But the audit said it appeared Davis thought hiring the legislators might help labor studies keep the $358,368 a year it was receiving from the state budget appropriation. In a Sept. 24, 2004, faculty meeting — tape-recorded under division policy — Davis said paying the lawmakers was "better than losing $358,000 in a line item" and noted that Aguilera was on the budget-writing House Ways and Means Committee.

Davis said his comments at the meeting focused on the "complex and difficult" question of whether labor studies should be going after worker-training grants. "I submit that my comments on this difficult issue were appropriate," he wrote.

Industry quashed IU grants

Davis dismissed the legislators when it became clear IU wasn't going to get any more training grants.

Brian Burton, vice president for marketing and member services of the Indiana Manufacturers Association, was on the Incumbent Worker Training board at the time. He said he blocked labor studies' grants because the applications from Aguilera and Liggett didn't meet the program criteria. For example, he said one proposal involved Spanish-language instruction and another the use of high-tech devices by carpenters.

"They were supposed to be for certified, recognized, technical skill upgrades for industry in Indiana," he said.

Davis said he told the legislators before the 2004 election that their jobs were ending — evidence, he said, that they weren't employed to influence the state budget the Legislature would approve the next year.

Republicans took control of state government with the election, and the Legislature promptly eliminated state funding for IU labor studies. It also folded the Incumbent Worker Training program into a new training-grant program run by the state Department of Workforce Development and the Indiana Economic Development Corp.

Universities hire lawmakers

According to the audit, Davis set the legislators' pay at $65,000 a year because that was the minimum paid to legislators who worked for Ivy Tech State College.

Ivy Tech — now Ivy Tech Community College — employs four legislators. Senate President Pro Tem Robert Garton, R-Columbus, House Minority Leader B. Patrick Bauer, D-South Bend, and Rep. Craig Fry, D-Mishawaka, all make more than $100,000 a year. Rep. William Crawford, D-Indianapolis, makes $66,991. Purdue, Ball State and Vincennes universities and the University of Southern Indiana also have employed legislators.

Indiana University now has two full-time employees who are legislators: Rep. William Cochran, D-New Albany, an assistant to the chancellor of IU Southeast; and Rep. Vernon Smith, D-Gary, an education professor at IU Northwest. Both make about $57,000.

But under a new policy, IU officials will have to jump through hoops to hire legislators or anyone else who holds public office, including federal, state, county and city elected officials and people involved in state higher-education governance.

Herbert, the IU president, implemented the policy in December in response to a recommendation in the labor studies audit. It says anyone who hires a public official to work for IU must justify the employee's salary and get approval from the president or the campus chancellor or provost.

Problems not over for IU's labor studies; Department's pro-union activities anger business groups
By Steve Hinnefeld
March 12, 2006

BLOOMINGTON - Indiana University is auditing the finances of the IU Division of Labor Studies for the four-year period that Charles Davis was its director.

Labor studies faculty requested the audit in January, according to the division's faculty leadership committee. IU spokesman Larry MacIntyre confirmed the audit is under way.

The faculty leaders - Ruth Needleman, William Mello, Steven Ashby, Lynn Duggan and Mark Crouch - issued a statement Friday in response to questions about an IU audit of Davis' employment of two state legislators in 2003-04.

They said faculty weren't consulted when Democratic Reps. John Aguilera and Ron Liggett were hired to work for the division. And they weren't informed about the lawmakers' duties until a September 2004 meeting.

Davis resigned as director last fall after an audit that was critical of the hiring.

"A large majority of the DLS faculty welcomed both the findings of the audit report and Director Davis' resignation," the faculty leaders' statement said.

But the division still faces problems, including opposition from influential business groups that object to its pro-union activities.

"They cross the line, and have for years, from education to advocacy," said Brian Burton, a vice president of the Indiana Manufacturers Association.

IUPUI officials say labor studies is too small and financially vulnerable to remain a stand-alone division. They have set a December 2006 deadline for it to merge with a larger school or to find a home on a different campus.

Labor studies faculty say they have increased enrollment and overcome a financial crisis that resulted from the Legislature's elimination of $358,368 a year in state funding. But they think the deadline for finding a merger partner is unrealistic and arbitrary.

Faculty said IU seems to be trying to compress what should be a two-year process into a few months before IUPUI Executive Vice Chancellor Bill Plater, who is handling the situation, steps down on June 30.

By the numbers

$175,710: The total that two legislators were paid by IU labor studies for 16 months of work.

$39.44: Their average hourly pay rate.

$478,978: The value of four Incumbent Worker Training grants secured by one legislator for labor studies to administer; the other secured no grants.

$26,188: Administrative costs from one of the grants used to pay a legislator's wages. IU auditors disputed the use.

$1,268: Estimated overpayments for mileage reimbursement related to commuting costs.

$2,998: Amount reimbursed to one legislator for 15 months of cell phone service.

$358,368: Annual state funding for IU Division of Labor Studies; eliminated by state Legislature in 2005.

IPFW faculty question sports costs
Associated Press
March 13, 2006

FORT WAYNE - Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne's upgrade to NCAA Division I athletics is costing more than officials anticipated, a faculty report found.

The report, to be presented Monday to the IPFW Faculty Senate, found expenses have been higher than anticipated while contributions have been lower since the Fort Wayne campus made the shift to Division I in 2000.

"It's costing a lot more, and we're getting a lot less from the community. It is a strain on the budget," said Brian Fife, chairman of the Budgetary Affairs Subcommittee that drafted the report.

"Most universities don't make money off athletics, and IPFW is no exception," he said.

The report said the university provides more than $1 million to support athletics, when projections indicated there would be no cost to IPFW. Total costs anticipated to be about $2.5 million have turned out to be more than $4 million.

The committee recommended in December 2000 that IPFW suspend the move, saying there was not enough money and no evidence of academic benefit.

Some IPFW officials, however, said the move has boosted the school's reputation and helped attract students.

"In the end, I think it's adding to the academic side by enhancing the reputation of the university," Chancellor Michael Wartell said.

Neither the men's nor the women's basketball team has won more than 10 games in a season since IPFW joined Division I.

Walt Branson, vice chancellor for financial affairs, said IPFW's support for athletics has come in the form of scholarships that would have had to be paid for anyway.

"From a success standpoint, there are a whole host of intangible things that are very, very hard to measure," Branson said.

"What is the marketing value we get from the athletic exposure the university has? Some people believe that's a very good thing, and other people believe that's totally meaningless."

SAT scoring error highlights imperfections of tests
Associated Press
March 12, 2006

For the past five years, Hamilton College in upstate New York has been one of a growing number of colleges not to require the SAT exam. The test causes too much anxiety, Hamilton concluded, and there's a risk of missing bright students who don't test well.

On Tuesday night, Hamilton's faculty voted unanimously to make that policy permanent. By coincidence, the next morning brought a reminder that there's another potential downside to standardized tests - news arrived that 4,000 SAT exams taken last October had been mis-scored.

"They do a lot of things right," Hamilton dean of admission and financial aid Monica Inzer said of the College Board, which owns the exam. "But it shows how vulnerable we all are when we depend too much on one test."

The error affected fewer than 1 percent of test-takers, and shouldn't affect admissions decisions - though Inzer noted it's too late for students to apply to schools they might have considered with a higher score.

Experts say mistakes are inevitable in any operation on the scale of grading millions of tests. Still, the episode is likely to spark wider discussion about standardized tests - both college entrance exams and the growing number of high-stakes, state-level exams: Just how much risk of error is tolerable when students' futures are at stake?

Recent years have seen a number of scoring errors on state-level tests and graduate school exams such as the Graduate Management Admission Test. Some were small and caught early, others significant. In 2003 and 2004, 4,100 people were incorrectly told by the Educational Testing Service they failed a teacher licensing exam. In 2000, more than 8,000 Minnesota high school students were mistakenly told they had failed a state exam, and dozens missed their class graduation ceremonies.

That mistake prompted a previous incarnation of Pearson Educational Management, which also scores the SAT, to pay a $7 million settlement. On college admissions bulletin boards this week, there was talk of lawsuits in response to the SAT gaffe, along with angry comments from students and parents.

Deepening anxiety

While the SAT error was comparatively small in scale, "it is such a visible program, that people freak out," said Scott Marion, vice president for the New Hampshire-based National Center for the Improvement of Educational Assessment.

"These students and their families are so anxious, and something like this, even though it's relatively minor out of the millions of kids who took standardized tests this year, it rattles their sense of anxiety even more," said Wylie Mitchell, dean of admissions at Bates College in Maine, another SAT-optional school.

Stretched too thin?

Critics of standardized testing seized on the error as confirmation the testing industry - dominated by CTB/McGraw-Hill, Harcourt Assessment and Pearson - is stretched too thin for the public's good.

"The volume is way up, and the people with the competence to do this don't exist," said Robert Schaeffer of the group Fair Test, which opposes many of the ways standardized tests are used.

A recent report by Education Sector, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank, portrayed a highly competitive industry facing huge pressure from its biggest clients - the states - to cut costs and deliver results quickly. That time pressure is sometimes reinforced by contract provision for financial penalties if scores are late coming back.

Pearson says the SAT error may have been caused by excessive moisture that caused answer sheets to expand and some marks to be unreadable.

Spokesman David Hakensen said Friday Pearson has invested heavily in quality and capacity; since 2000, it has increased its number of scanners by 66 percent, added 60 percent more processing space and increased its report-printing capacity 45 percent.

"We take any mistake seriously and we feel terrible about it, of course," he said. "The people administering this test are people too and are aware that this is important stuff and feel bad when this happens."

Most of the incorrect scores were off by fewer than 100 points on the 2,400-point test, and only 16 changed by 200 points or more, the College Board said.

Some mistakes inevitable

Marion said companies like Pearson are improving their processes, but the increased demand and time pressure may be negating the progress. In any case, perfection is impossible.

"You won't see this mistake from Pearson again, but you'll see a different mistake," he said. "As long as you have humans involved, you're going to have some mistakes."

Sixth seed fine with IU; Hoosiers thrilled to be heading to Salt Lake City for tournament opener
By Doug Wilson
March 13, 2006

The Hoosiers threw up their arms and yelled as they heard they're a No. 6 seed in the NCAA Tournament and will play No. 11 seed San Diego State Thursday in Salt Lake City.

Sitting together in the basement of Mike Davis' home on the north side of Bloomington, Indiana's players got better news than they expected as they watched the NCAA Selection show on TV Sunday evening.

Davis and several players said they anticipated IU being seeded somewhere between seventh and ninth, and were excited that the selection committee apparently took notice of the Hoosiers' play in winning five of their last six.

"I think we opened up some eyes," IU senior Marshall Strickland said. "We didn't expect to get a six. I think a six is great. Now it's for us to go out and win some games this week."

San Diego State (24-8) is coached by former Michigan coach Steve Fisher. The Aztecs earned a spot in the NCAA Tournament by winning the Mountain West Tournament with a 69-64 win over Wyoming Saturday night.

The winner of the IU-San Diego State game will play Saturday against the winner of a Thursday game between No. 3 seed Gonzaga and No. 14 Xavier.

Davis said Sunday he knew his Hoosiers should be a tournament team even when they were in the midst of a five-game losing streak earlier in the Big Ten season. They just needed to change their mentality, he said, and were able to do that after he announced his resignation almost a month ago.

"I said we have a lot of basketball ahead of us and I knew we did," he recalled.

But after two years of not making the NCAA field, Davis still wasn't positive about IU making the tournament this year until he heard the official word on TV. With reporters and TV cameras cramming into his basement, Davis sat on the floor with his son, Mike Jr., watching the selection show.

Most of his players sat behind him on a long sectional couch, periodically waving and cheering when they saw themselves live on national TV. The TV broadcast showed a number of teams around the country as they waited to hear whether they'd make the field, and IU was one of those teams on TV.

"You never know," Davis said. "Everybody says you're in — toughest conference in the country. And I figured that we would be in, but not knowing what seed we would be. So now you're looking at it with us having a sixth seed, we probably were in after the Michigan game."

Davis watched parts of San Diego State's games on Friday and Saturday. He wasn't scouting the team as a potential opponent, just watching it because an Atzec assistant coach, Mark Hughes, has been a good friend since back when both he and Davis coached in the CBA.

The sixth-year Hoosier coach said what's important for IU in the tournament is to keep playing the same way it has been lately — with improved defensive intensity, but a less uptight approach to the game.

"We're definitely a dangerous team, but so are the other teams involved in this tournament because it's one and done," Davis said. "It's your mindset going into the game. You need to play free, not play tight."

Like the rest of the team, Strickland was all smiles Sunday, after learning he'll be returning to the NCAA Tournament for the first time since he was a freshman. He said he'll have some advice for youngsters on this year's squad.

"One thing I've told the freshmen is that after my freshman year, I thought it would happen every year," Strickland said. "I thought it was just a given, but it hasn't been. Now I've got my second chance and I'm going to let them know they may not get another opportunity like this.

"We're really excited right now. We think we got a good draw, a good seed, and it's right there for us."

A more open door: Indiana bucks trend; State has passed more bills loosening access to public information than restricting it - unlike most of the nation
By Keith Robinson
Associated Press
March 12, 2006

EDITOR'S NOTE: This week has been declared Sunshine Week by media organizations and other groups pressing for greater government openness, spot-lighting the laws that govern how much information is withheld from the public.

INDIANAPOLIS - Persistent efforts to safeguard the ideals of an open government have kept Indiana running counter to a nationwide trend toward tighter access to public information since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

An Associated Press analysis of bills passed in the state Legislature from 2002 to 2005 - four legislative sessions after the attacks - showed that 10 restricted access to public records and 15 loosened access, while nine were neutral or mixed.

Nationwide, legislatures have passed slightly more than 1,000 laws changing access to information since that day, with more than twice as many restricting access to information as those opening records.

In the four years before the attacks, 13 laws passed in Indiana limited access, 23 loosened it and eight were neutral.

The laws that were passed over the eight years came from at least 242 proposals involving access to public information. Among those, 97 proposed restricting access and 97 proposed loosening it, while 48 were neutral.

"We probably are faring a little better than most other states as far as openness," said Fred H. Cate, a law professor at Indiana University.

Report of abuses led the way

Cate credited an examination by a group of newspapers in 1998 for setting a mandate for open government. The report detailed abuses of the state's law regulating access to public records in local governments.

The report led to the creation of the state Office of the Public Access Counselor, which mediates complaints involving access to meetings and public records.

For agencies wanting to restrict information that should be open to the public, Cate said the newspapers' report sent a message that "we're not going to take that here."

That message was sent again after legislators in April 2001 passed a bill to exempt themselves from the state's Access to Public Records Act in a dispute over whether their correspondence with constituents should be confidential. Open-records advocates said the bill went too far in allowing the Legislature to set its own rules for releasing public records.

Gov. Frank O'Bannon, who owned a newspaper and was an advocate of open government, vetoed the bill, setting the stage for an override vote in the next legislative session. News organizations and other open- government advocates heavily lobbied their legislators to thwart an override.

The campaign worked. In March 2002, legislators voted to sustain the veto, killing the bill.

Terrorism and openness

Before the terrorist attacks, reasons to close public records typically involved concerns about privacy and identity theft. Since then, homeland security has entered the equation.

"There's been a lot more concern and a lot more willingness for legislators to be swayed by arguments of identity theft, homeland security or personal privacy ... than what had occurred before 9/11," said Steve Key, general counsel for the newspaper industry group Hoosier State Press Association.

The Legislature in 2003 responded to the terrorist attacks by closing access to certain documents involving security, such as maps of electric grids and the locations of municipal water intake points. But written into the law at the urging of open- government advocates was a provision allowing the public to examine the records in the event of an attack.

Key, who lobbied for that requirement, said the provision enables the public to hold the government accountable for its response to the emergency.

While legislators passed more bills to keep public records open than to close them - often at the urging of government watchdogs - what the numbers don't show is the extent to which some bills restrict access. A 2003 law makes records of disciplinary action against public employees secret except for final action of suspension, demotion or discharge, and a 2001 law makes information about public-employee pension funds confidential.

E-mail bill up for passage

Among bills that legislators have passed this year in a session scheduled to end Tuesday is a measure making e-mail address lists created by public agencies confidential. The bill is expected to be sent to Gov. Mitch Daniels for his consideration.

"They do keep chipping away at the public's right to know," said Tracy Warner, editorial page editor of the Journal Gazette in Fort Wayne, one of the newspapers involved in the 1998 report.

Proponents of open government agree there are legitimate reasons to make some information confidential. Under a law enacted in 2001, victims of domestic violence can create an artificial mailing address through the state attorney general's office to keep their actual location private. The state press association supported that legislation.

They also agree such restrictions should be exceptions, not the norm, so people can effectively monitor their government.

"Only if we have an educated electorate can we have a truly democratic form of government," said Marian Pearcy, president of the nonprofit citizens' advocacy group Indiana Coalition for Open Government. "We need to check on them (public officials) or we'll lose it all."

Sunshine Week - Indiana laws

A look at some state laws enacted from 1998 to 2005 related to access to public records:

2005

• Mandated that the new Indiana Economic Development Corporation would be subject to open-government laws.
• Allowed police to keep confidential the address and telephone number of people who report criminal behavior
• Restricted public access to Social Security numbers in state records to last four digits.

2004

• Made available to the public certain election records that were previously sealed or destroyed after an election.
• Opened public records in cases when a child dies of neglect, abuse or abandonment.

2003

• Made written reprimands of public employees secret, except final action of suspension, demotion or discharge
• Eliminated access to records in interests of homeland security but required making them available to the public in event of a terrorist attack.

2002

• Made aggregate data on complaints of gas station price gouging filed with state attorney general available to public
• Allowed state Department of Correction to keep the identity of state executioners confidential.

2001

• Made charter schools subject to state's access laws.
• Made confidential the names and addresses of emergency medical service runs because of new federal regulations.

2000

• Made school security plans confidential, in reaction to shootings at Columbine High School in Colorado.

1999

• Created Office of Public Access Counselor.
• Limited the amount local governments can charge in copying fees to the cost of paper and the per-page costs of using a copying machine. Charges cannot include labor or overhead costs.

1998

• Allowed counties to adopt new jury-selection process requiring jury lists to be kept confidential absent a court order.

Preamble to Indiana's Access to Public Records Act

"A fundamental philosophy of the American constitutional form of representative government is that government is the servant of the people and not their master.

"Accordingly, it is the public policy of the state that all persons are entitled to full and complete information regarding the affairs of government and the official acts of those who represent them as public officials and employees.

"Providing persons with the information is an essential function of a representative government and an integral part of the routine duties of public officials and employees, whose duty it is to provide the information.

"This chapter shall be liberally construed to implement this policy and place the burden of proof for the nondisclosure of a public record on the public agency that would deny access to the record and not on the person seeking to inspect and copy the record."

The agony of the audition; More than 600 hopefuls were on the IU campus last weekend, vying for a School of Music place next school year
by Annie Tasker
Special to the Hoosier Times
March 12, 2006

BLOOMINGTON - There's a little window in the door of Indiana University's Recital Hall. Knots of people gathered around it as, inside, the violinist of the moment played for an audience of two - both IU music professors.

The friend of one hopeful pressed his ear against the crack in the door, better to pick up a hint of what the competition might be like. As the music inside stopped, a woman holding her own violin walked away a little. She clutched the instrument to her chest, absently plucking at the strings as she stared out the exit.

The door opened. "Tiffany?" asked the woman in the doorway, clipboard in hand. Tiffany turned back, entered the hall. It was her turn now. "Come in. Welcome," said the clipboard woman. The door closed behind them.

It was audition time.

The process is one that each of the 659 IU School of Music hopefuls who tried out March 3 and 4 at the Bloomington campus would go through - if not with violin, then perhaps with oboe, viola or voice.

By the end of the auditions - the last of this year's three audition weekends and some rescheduled tryouts - about 3,000 prospective students will have auditioned for Indiana University's music school. Only 25 percent to 30 percent will be accepted for the coming school year.

For the people auditioning last weekend, the day consisted of registration in the Musical Arts Center lobby, a 50-question basic musicianship test that would determine their placement in music theory courses if they're accepted, a handful of optional campus, school and music library tours and, of course, the auditions. Practice rooms were made available for students who wanted to spend the day warming up for their auditions, which went on from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Friday and 8 a.m.-2 p.m. Saturday. At Friday afternoon's catered reception, violin student Stanislav Pronin played for students and parents.

"We try to make it as low-key as we can," said School of Music admissions representative Anne Vaught. "These students are so brave, coming into a new environment. How they perform in 15 to 20 minutes determines where they'll spend the next four years of their lives."

Performance degree hopefuls presented before two to 12 faculty members in their auditions. Voice, composition, recording arts and doctoral guitar and piano candidates were in the second phase of their audition process. They already had submitted recordings last December before being accepted for the audition round. The non-performance areas auditioning for the next school year were music education, composition and musicology. They had to present their portfolios and interview with faculty. Composition and music education auditionees had to perform in their own auditions as well, since they have to play an instrument. The ballet department, considered a part of the School of Music, also held auditions.

March auditions are generally the busiest, said Vaught, and this year's last round is the largest in recent history. 640 people auditioned last month, and only 350 in January. It's a busy year in general for auditions with 3,000 applicants overall. That contrasts with 2004 and 2005, when only about 2,300 people tried out. School of Music Dean Gwyn Richards can't say for sure why so many students auditioned this month, but thinks it might be the publicity garnered by November's $40.6 million donation by David and Barbara Jacobs and the subsequent name change to the Jacobs School of Music. The naming got the school some press, as did this month's world premiere of the opera "Our Town" at the MAC. "We're known as being number one," said Richards. "There's a growing sense that Indiana is the place to study music."

Students who auditioned last week will find out if they got in or not by April 1. Last year, about 60 percent of those accepted following the three audition weekends attended IU in the fall, said Vaught.

As student hopefuls took their seats for their basic musicianship tests, Richards spoke to parents in another room at the MAC. Students were being judged for their performance and their musicianship in the auditions, he told the parents. "In many cases, you don't really know," he added. "There's a lot today we won't be able to determine - drive, determination, work ethic. And boy, how much that matters."

You don't really know about the musician by looking at his face, either. If nerves were a problem for Ian de Jong as he was waiting to play Saturday for that select Recital Hall audience, it didn't show.

He was the picture of calm 10 minutes before his Saturday violin audition. He stared, expressionless, at the floor, cradling his violin. Auditions were nothing new for him, having already tried out for music schools at Northwestern, DePaul and the University of Wisconsin's.

"You need to tune up?" asked his mother, Brenda. "No," Ian said. "There's all these other people here."

Brenda admits that pestering is part of being the parent of a musician. As the minutes ticked closer to her son's audition time, she talked about being Ian's mother and, in a sense, his agent. "It takes a lot to support a music student," she said. Brenda makes phone calls, keeps his schedule in order and, with her husband Michael, made the four-hour drive from Chicago so he could play his violin for five minutes. Brenda and Michael also will go with him to his audition for music schools in Amsterdam this summer.

Ian waited, next in line to walk the gauntlet, down the aisle of IU's Recital Hall and onto the stage for the few minutes that could determine where he'd spend his undergraduate career. Stunning strains of violin music wafted out the door. All three de Jongs listened to the competition from the hallway. Another family was at the door, looking through the window.

"He does sound good," said Brenda. "Wow. He's smokin'."

Finally, Ian's composure cracked a little. "That's kind of intimidating," he said. "I'll just assume he's a grad student."

Who's liable for suicide?; Lawsuit raises issue of liability for suicidal university students
Washington Post
March 11, 2006

WASHINGTON - About 2 a.m. one sleepless night, sophomore Jordan Nott checked himself into George Washington University Hospital.

He was depressed, he said, and thinking about suicide.

Within a day and a half of arriving there, he got a letter from a GWU administrator saying his "endangering behavior" violated the code of student conduct. He faced possible suspension and expulsion from school, the letter said, unless he withdrew and deferred the charges while he got treatment.

In the meantime, he was barred from campus.

"It was like a stab in the back," he said. He felt they were telling him, "We're going to wipe our hands clean of you."

His response has college administrators around the country taking notice: Nott sued the university and individuals involved. The school violated federal law protecting Americans with disabilities, the complaint argues. The law covers mental as well as physical impairments.

In essence, it says the school betrayed him by sharing confidential treatment information and suspending him just when he most needed help.

In court documents filed this week, the university's attorneys defended the actions taken, denied that Nott was disabled and suggested that his conduct might bar his recovery. And they asked that the charges be dismissed for the individuals named - mostly administrators and counselors. The university policies might seem impersonal, spokeswoman Tracy Schario said, but they are designed to keep both individuals and the community safe.

Suicidal students have always forced tough calls. But with shifting legal ground, growing threats of lawsuits and increasing numbers of troubled teen-agers entering colleges, many administrators are even more worried about how to handle them.

Historically, administrators have not been held responsible for student suicides, said Karen-Ann Broe of United Educators, but recent - and not yet settled - cases have thrown that in flux.

At Ferrum College in Virginia, where a student had made explicit threats before committing suicide, a judge said before the case was settled that the college has a duty to prevent suicide if the risk is readily foreseeable. "That's a pretty radical innovation of the law," to hold people with no expertise in mental health accountable, said Gary Pavela, director of judicial programs at the University of Maryland.

Until the 1960s and '70s, colleges were expected to take care of students almost as parents would. Then students demanded to be treated as adults. Now Broe sees another shift, with more talk of sharing responsibility.

And there's more nervousness, Pavela said. "College administrators are talking about it and looking for guidance. ... Some have decided that the safest thing to do is to get rid of these kids, if someone talks about suicide, or looks depressed."

"To have knowledge and fail to act is just an invitation to liability," said Sheldon Steinbach of the American Council on Education. The decision has to be balanced against whether a student would get the best support on campus, he said, but keeping a troubled student in a dorm means taking a tremendous risk.

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