Stock markets are falling, jobs are disappearing, and the outlook for the economy seems grim. Banks, real estate developers,
retailers and manufacturers are taking the worst hits, but all types of businesses in central Indiana are hurting. From health
care to technology, education to philanthropy, every industry is trying to take the setbacks in stride.
From 1979 to 1982, IUPUI inherited three world-class athletic facilities that have since hosted Olympic trials and world-record performances by top-flight amateur and professional athletes. But that inheritance has turned into a financial albatross around the university’s neck. It’s grappling with how to pay for their upkeep and the improvements necessary to keep the facilities–and the city–in the hunt for high-profile sporting events.
Six current and former University of Indianapolis professors who in late 2006 alleged business school dean Mitch Shapiro
violated hiring practices and created a hostile work environment got what they wanted last month.
In less than four months, new Martin University President Algeania Freeman said, she hit her two main objectives for the state’s
only predominantly black university: cut costs and increase fund raising. But her whirlwind of activity
has not come without controversy.
Well-known names are bubbling to the top as speculation heats up about who will replace embattled Indiana University Athletic
Director Rick Greenspan and how much money the job will command. Greenspan announced June 26 that he’ll step down at the end
of the year. The decision came after the NCAA added to the list of charges facing IU’s men’s basketball program over rules
violations under former Coach Kelvin Sampson.
Retired Ivy Tech Community College President Gerald Lamkin has repaid nearly $20,000 after a review of the college foundation’s
expense-reimbursement policy uncovered bills that had been paid for him without proper documentation. College and foundation
officials call the accounting lapse and Lamkin’s inability to produce receipts for all the submitted expenses an “innocent
oversight” and have implemented a revised policy with tighter controls.
Indiana University President Michael McRobbie calls it “Innovate Indiana.” His ambition is to corral all of IU’s strengths
under one new branded initiative to boost the Hoosier economy. Purdue University already has leveraged a similar strategy,
promoted with “Go BusinessMakers!” billboards, to national acclaim.
Endowments at Indiana colleges and universities are soaring, due in part to impressive investment returns in recent years.
The swelling coffers here and across the nation are stoking the debate over whether universities should be using more of their
wealth to hold down tuition increases.
Based on 50 conversations IU Foundation President Curt Simic had with donors the week after news broke of the potential firing
of men’s basketball coach Kelvin Sampson over alleged NCAA improprieties, the chief of Indiana University’s philanthropic
arm says he has little fear the latest athletic department controversy will affect financial support to the school.
Students donning caps and gowns this May will find jobs aplenty, college career officers and others say. Some industries–like
health care, accounting, engineering, computer science and sales–are more flush with jobs than others. But students receiving
liberal arts degrees also are in high demand because of their well-rounded education.
For the last two months, two academics at Indiana University and Purdue University have been discussing how the institutions
can work together to rev up research in medicine and life sciences and, in the process, boost Indiana’s economy.
Not everyone is welcoming the launch of an Indianapolis-based not-for-profit, backed by billionaire businessmen, that aims
to curb colleges’ discretion in spending donor contributions.
Indiana University and the state’s Office of Technology have sought an emergency order from regulators to halt a Colorado
company’s further assimilation of an Indianapolis fiber provider it bought Oct. 1.
The 7-year-old Lumina Foundation, formed as part of the sale of USA Group, is on a radical mission-to overhaul the way higher
education is funded in this country. The not-for-profit believes the nation’s economic future depends on making college more
affordable, and accessible.
Entering her third year as Ball State University’s president, Jo Ann Gora has earned a reputation in business and political
circles as a shrewd, aggressive ambassador for the 19,500-student university. And by all measures, she’s just gotten started.
Indiana University appears poised to choose an internal candidate as president for the first time in 35 years . The decision
could be announced within days. Two IU trustees confirmed that finalists include Michael McRobbie and Ora Pescovitz, well-known
IU administrators.
Indianapolis not-for-profits are growing as more universities embrace service learning–an educational approach that encourages
students to incorporate academics into community service.
In an 80-grit patch of the city fluent in poverty and despair, the Rev. Father Boniface Hardin lectures a visitor on how businesspeople need to learn the language and culture of countries where they operate. If not out of deference, then do it for practical reasons, he says, painting a picture of foreign business partners who “bow their heads and say, ‘This guy is one big sucker and we can rip him off,’ in their language.” What at first sounds…
