Costs for new flight
academy would not affect student’s tuition. The academy is an important
step for student development, university officials said.
Diann McKee, vice president of business
affairs and university treasurer, said the start-up costs, which are
estimated at $ 2 million, will not increase general student fees. She
said the university will be making a loan from reserves to cover the
funds and that will be paid back with interest over a 10-year period.
In
the past, aviation students would pay course fees to a “third party
provider,” said McKee. Now, students will be paying those fees up front
to the flight academy and they will be calculated into the students’
financial aid packages.
“You could say at one level it’s put a
bind on the students,” said Jack Maynard, provost and vice president of
academic affairs. “On another level, it helps them to help them think
very clearly about what it’s going to take to get through that course.
When we were separating the flying from the courses, we didn’t think it
was in the student’s advantage to do that.”
The birth of the
flight academy is the latest in a slew of projects underway on campus,
such as the construction of the North Residential and Erikson Halls
renovation. But while the creation of the academy means extra expenses
for ISU, Maynard said the move was crucial for student development.
“The
bottom line was, as we evaluate this project, really came out to be
what’s the best for our students in terms of putting quality graduates
out there,” said Maynard. “There’s no doubt that you could use the
reserves for other things, also—there’s a lot of needs on campus. And
not to take away from those projects, but this is a needed step.”
Although
Indiana State has a 47 year relationship with the Brown Flight School
and has relied solely on it for the last two years, Maynard said the
university was discussing a venue switch “for a while.”
Last
month, ISU’s Board of Trustees approved the collaboration between the
university and the Terre Haute International Airport, allowing the two
to enter into a four-year lease. In exchange for the lease, the airport
will allot a facility for classrooms and offices as well as hangar
space, according to President Daniel J. Bradley’s December news release.
In addition to the loaned airspace and facility, ISU will
recruit adjunct or temporary instructors for the academy and purchase a
used fleet of airplanes that will be kept on the airport’s premises.
“It
has nothing directly to do with Brown,” said Maynard. “When you look
around the country at quality flying schools, we were in the minority of
minorities. Look at North Dakota and Eastern Kentucky, for example; all
of them have their own airplanes and run their own flying schools. We
wanted to move to increase the quality and reputation of our program.”
The
university wanted students to train on the most up to date aircrafts,
Maynard said. The airplanes available at Brown’s Flight School are
dated. For example, today’s airplanes, such as the commercial
prototypes, have glass cockpits and incorporate the use of computers.
Earlier
planes have cockpits often seen in “old movies” using only knobs and
dials. Despite those differences, students should be familiar with all
types, said Maynard.
“Our students need to have experience on
both. They need to see the traditional cockpit and the glass cockpit. We
weren’t sure if Brown was able to make the investment, to move up to
that,” said Maynard.
Negotiations with the airport about the
facility’s location keep renovations to that facility and overall costs,
which should be finalized this month. He anticipates the academy will
be ready in fall 2013.
Source: http://www.indianastatesman.com
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment