Around The Campus

2001-02 room rate increase approved\nThe board of trustees approved a 4 percent increase in room expenses for the 2001-02 school year at its Friday meeting.\nOnly new students will pay the increase in room rates. Rates for returning students will be frozen. Meal plan prices will not increase.\nThe overall rate increase for new students will be 2.2 percent, which Associate Vice Chancellor for Administrative Affairs Bruce Jacobs said is the lowest in the Big Ten. \n"Returning students will have room and board rate frozen," Jacobs explained. "For anyone signing a new contract, the (room) rate will be 4 percent higher. If you take that 4 percent and divide it up by all students living on campus, that's how you get the number."\nNew minority fellows program offered in SPEA \nA new minority fellowship program for graduate students in the School of Public and Environment Affairs has been created in honor of Professor Emeritus Philip Rutledge. Rutledge is former special assistant to the IU president and director of the Center for Global Studies in the Office of International Programs.\nThe program is a collaboration of SPEA and the Research and University Graduate School. The fellowship is dedicated to "celebrate the tireless contributions to the public good by this distinguished SPEA faculty member and to make it possible for future generations of minority graduate students to follow in his footsteps," SPEA Dean Astrid Merget said.\nSPEA has committed to raise $1 million to fully endow the program, Merget said. Aside from SPEA's own financial resources, Merget said the school will seek commitments from individuals, corporations and foundations across Indiana and the U.S.\nExceptional students from traditionally under-represented groups at IU will be recruited for the fellows program in SPEA's Ph.D. and master's degree programs. The school offers both doctoral and master's degrees in public affairs and environmental science and a Ph.D. in public policy.