The Wichitan - Midwestern State University, Wichita Falls Texas

MIDWESTERN STATE UNIVERSITY | February 22, 2006
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Reduction Act raises rates of student loans
Krystle Carey | The Wichitan

Last fall, MSU student enrollment hit 6,279. Almost 45 percent of these students received government loans.

A bill approved recently by the House and Senate will soon affect these students, according to Sue Nelson, associate director of financial aid at MSU.

Due to the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005, which cleared the Senate on Dec. 21 and the House Feb. 1, a couple of new changes will begin to take effect this summer.

The biggest change will occur July 1 when the Stafford Student Loan will switch from the current variable rate on student loans to a fixed rate, Nelson said. Students will now have to pay back the borrowed money at a 6.8 percent fixed rate rather than the current 5.3 percent variable rate.

According to Nelson, the Parent PLUS Loan (taken out by parents) will change to a fixed rate of 8.5 percent from the current 6.1 percent.

The increase in interest rates weren’t much of a surprise to Nelson.

“It just wasn’t realistic that a lender could continue to have that low of an interest rate,” Nelson said.

Although the rate is going up, Nelson said she doesn’t see this as a negative because the annual loan limits have been increased. The Stafford loan limit will change from $2,625 to $3,500 for freshmen, from $3,500 to $4,500 for sophomores and from $5,000 to $7,000 for upperclassmen.

“That is a positive that students can get more money because right now freshmen have a harder time meeting tuition fees, room, board, books because they can only get $2,625,” Nelson said.

Along with this is the benefit of having a bigger disbursement amount. Currently, students who would receive the full $2,625 for the year would only get $1,273.13 for their first installment. However, students who would receive the full $3,500 for the year would get $1,697.50 for their first installment.

The only thing that concerns the MSU financial aid office, according to Nelson, is that the aggregate loan limit was not raised as well.

“We feel like if they are increasing the amounts a student can take out as a freshman, our concern is that a senior could get up to being a senior and have met their aggregate loan limit,” Nelson said.

The current aggregate loan limit is $23,000.

Nelson said she would like students to look at their resources and only take the amount they need in loans.

Another change will take effect with the origination fees, which are fees taken out by lenders and the Department of Education to cover costs and defaulted loans. According to Nelson, any disbursements made after July 1 will be reduced from 3 percent to 2 percent, and every July it will reduce an additional 0.5 percent until it is phased out completely in 2010.

A few changes will also be taking effect on the consolidation of loans.

Spousal consolidation will no longer be allowed, said Nelson. She believes this will be a good change, however, because such consolidations can end up being very complicated.

“We have been counseling students for quite awhile that we don’t encourage them to do spousal consolidation,” Nelson said. “It’s just not wise for them to do that.”

In-school consolidation will also be eliminated as a choice for students.

Nelson said that she thinks this is a good change because while students are in school, they are still taking out loans.

Another advantage arising from the bill, according to Nelson, is an increase in the income protection allowances for students receiving loans.

This change will affect students’ Expected Family Contribution numbers, which is the number that the financial aid office uses to determine the amount of money a student will receive. When a student’s income increases, his EFC number will decrease, leading the student to not receive as much money. Nelson believes that people will start to see more EFC numbers going down for students who work, which she thinks is a positive.

A positive for parents of graduate students is that they will now be able to apply for a PLUS loan to help their child, whereas they didn’t have that option before.

Another change that the financial aid office at MSU is trying to decide on is the 30-day delay on disbursement of freshmen loans. Currently, freshmen have to wait 30 days to receive their funds.

Nelson said there is a positive and a negative to changing this procedure. The positive of ending the 30-day delay is that freshmen would no longer have to wait a month before receiving their funds. However, the negative would come into play whenever a student decides to drop out of school.

According to Nelson, there have been some instances where freshmen get homesick after moving into the dorm and then want to go back home. Nelson said if students have their funds before leaving, this could lead to complications.

Although all these changes are coming into effect, Nelson believes it was something that needed to be done.

“It can be a win-win situation. They needed the government to come to them with a decreased budget,” Nelson said. “I don’t think we have to make it a negative thing.”

Nelson also said that she cannot think of any negatives that would arise in the future. The only problem that she could foresee would be if they don’t raise the aggregate loan limit. She said if this is not done, students could have problems once they reach their upper levels because they may not have much money left to borrow before they reach the $23,000 aggregate loan limit.

This may not be a problem for some; however, loans used by students whose parents are not obtaining PLUS loans could reach the aggregate loan limit before they graduate. These students receive not only the loan amounts listed above, but also additional unsubsidized loans because of the lack of funding from their parents.

Some students, according to Nelson, decide not to use student loans and just use a credit card to pay for their education. Nelson believes the new interest rate is much better than the 9 percent and higher interest rates that credit cards companies charge. She said student loans are a viable product for students to use if they need to supplement their education.

“It’s still very feasible to use and all the benefits that they give you as far as repayment, they really work with you,” Nelson said.

Nelson said she hasn’t seen any anxiety from students regarding the new changes. However, she thinks it may be the fact that many students may not yet know about them. Although this may be the case, Nelson said students should not panic that they will not be able to go to school.

“Students haven’t ever seen it (interest rates) that high so they are thinking it’s the end, but it’s not,” Nelson said. “It caps out at 8.25 percent. It can never go higher than that. So, it’s not going to spiral or double.”

Although Nelson said more changes could be implemented in the future, she doesn’t see any being made sooner than four or five years.

Lessons in Diversity
Jane Owen experiences cultural clash on Navajo reservation
Rhonda Boelen | For The Wichitan

It wasn't surprising that such news would come from the Navajo police. They were often stopping in at the Kirtland High School campus. The news, however, was surprising to the principal. A student, a 16- or 17-year-old Navajo girl, had been murdered in a satanic ritual sacrifice by classmates.

They cut out the girl's liver and tried for her heart.

They left her body in an irrigation ditch.

One of the boys involved was also the principal's former student, an older Anglo who had dropped out of school.

A principal should not have to face such circumstances in any school, but for Dr. Jane Owen it and similar events 20 years ago led her to a career in diversity.

Owen, an education leadership instructor at MSU, teaches a class in human diversity. Through personal experiences as a teacher, assistant principal and principal, she learned how diverse the U.S. really is.

In the mid-1980s Owen moved to New Mexico with her husband, Jim, and children, Jill and Patrick. Jim, now a professor in the MSU College of Business, was employed as chief financial officer for the Navajo Agriculture Products Industry.

Owen landed a job as a teacher at Kirtland High School. The school district covered more than 3,000 square miles in the Four Corners Region, including a Navajo reservation.

She felt fortunate to get the job so quickly, because at that time, available positions were scarce. She had no idea of the culture shock in store for her.

"It was a whole different world out there," she said.

The school's demographics were 80 percent Native American and 20 percent Anglo.

She had taught previously in Denver at an advanced school. The small reservation school was like taking a giant step backward.

In a small portable structure far from the main school buildings, she began teaching mostly overage boys who could not read or were just learning. Meanwhile, she was learning lessons of her own in the Navajo culture.

As a sign of respect, the students would not look elders in the eye.

"They never looked at me. They never said very much to me. It was a long year," Owen recalled.

Occasionally, she visited the students' homes on the reservation. When she pulled up to a house, she was told that it was considered rude to get out and walk up to the door. She stayed in the car and honked the horn. If the occupants wanted to come out and talk with her they would. She was never invited into their homes.

She soon learned that education was not respected by many young Navajos.

"Navajo children who learn in school are criticized as being 'school boys' or 'school girls,'" she said.

Often, those students who conformed to the school setting were derogatorily called "apples," taunted by peers for being "red on the outside and white on the inside."

Many Navajo students, she discovered, were being raised by their grandparents. Often, the parents worked in different locations. Some had alcohol problems and left the children to the grandparents.

"Alcohol is a terrible problem on the reservation," Owen said.

Gradually, she came to deal with the Navajo students' loose concept of time. On the reservation, time was not a precise measurement. Students would come to school about 9 to 9:30 a.m. In the fall, they would start sometime after Labor Day. Students did not understand that they had a set time to be at school.

School attendance was sketchy at best, Owen said. Students were often enrolled, but not attending. They would jump from school to school in the area, increasing student turnover.

Navaho children were considered to be adults at a much younger age, according to Owen. By puberty, they were making their own decisions. They believed that no one was a better judge of what was good for a person than the person himself.

Local storeowners were nervous about seeing young boys and girls roaming freely. Personal responsibility posed another problem in the schools.

"When they came to high school and were treated like children, it was damaging for them," Owen said.

Forced to tolerate an environment where they had to ask permission for their every move, they often rebelled.

Where school matters were concerned, guardians believed student problems were to be handled only at school.

"The position of the Navajo adults was that you gave your children to the school, and it was the school's responsibility to do whatever needed to be done," Owen said.

Frequently, when Owen visited with a guardian about a student's absenteeism, the guardian acted as if it was not relevant to them.

"When I would call them and say, 'Your child's missing school,' they would say, 'So, what are you going to do about it?'"

Another common characteristic of students from the reservation was their transient nature. Students' parents followed jobs and had no concept of ownership.

"Everything belongs to everyone on the reservation. Owning land is a foreign concept. It's like owning the air or owning the sky," Owen said.

Mortality rate was high among the young Native Americans. Accidents, including those alcohol-related, were a main cause. Suicide was also a real problem.

Owen said she was called to speak at several students' funerals.

"I would always try to memorize just a few phrases in Navajo because a lot of the family couldn't understand a word I was saying," she said.

Later, when Owen became the school's first female principal, parents of the students had a hard time accepting her.

"I would have parents come in and say they wanted to talk to the principal, and I would say, 'I am the principal.' They would look surprised and say, 'No, the man principal.' They were actually looking for my assistant," she said.

Adding to her difficulties was the fact that much of the community, including Native Americans, was Mormon. At that time, male members of Mormon Church did not encourage the females to work.

"They [the women] stayed home and had many children," Owen said.

Faced with conflicts about her status in the school, Owen's objectives remained clear.

"I was very much into equity and excellence in education," she said.

In this unfamiliar territory, Owen soon became faced with another unpleasant aspect of being among highly diverse students. Gangswere beginning to make an impact on high school-aged children.

In that 4A school, two major regional gangs emerged with loose associations with the Bloods and Crips. They were suspected of running drugs from Albuquerque. Owen and her assistant principal educated themselves on gang symbols and fought hard to keep the gangs out of their school.

"Once it [gang activity] gets in you can't get it out," Owen said.
The first action taken was to identify those involved in the activities.

Today, tucked in a file in her office, she keeps drawings that were confiscated from students who had gang connections.

Pulling out a crude illustration, Owen explains it in her delicate female voice: "Oh, this is the one where they've hung me, killed my assistant principal and all the teachers at the high school."

The drawing shows a person hanging from a tree wearing a Ku Klux Klan robe. The words "Mrs. Owen" with an arrow pointing to the figure leave no doubt whom the character depicts.

Another picture shows her assistant principal being shot through the skull, the bullet exiting the back of his head. Other art illustrates prison scenes such as a guard tower.

But even with such blatant threats on her life, Owen remained optimistic.

"Basically, I always felt really safe. I knew that I wasn't going to be hurt physically," she said.

She believes it was the gang and drug influence that caused the satanic activities and the teenage girl's murder.

Satanism was a very real and prevalent activity in the school at that time. "The Steel Doors" was a cave in the bluffs someone had once dug out and closed with a pair of steel doors. Abandoned, it became a place where students performed satanic rituals. Owen visited the site and witnessed evidence of satanic activities including black candles, pentagrams and an animal sacrifice. It was around that time that her former student was discovered as having been a human sacrifice.

Owen admits that her first three years at the school "felt like bad depression," yet she stayed there for a span of 10 years.

She said she thought about leaving many times, but her husband loved his job and her children were finishing up high school in Farmington. She said she grew emotionally and intellectually over that time and eventually learned to love the environment. She learned valuable lessons from the Navajo people that changed her life.

"They have such a simple uncomplicated way of life," she said. "I learned a lot there as far as slowing down, enjoying what you have and not worrying so much about the future."

Everyone's favorite beagle
Cassie Daley | Staff Reporter

The MSU theatre department has touched our emotions, made us think and challenged us. Beginning on March 2, the audience will be challenged to have fun, laugh, sing and be a kid as the curtains go up on “Snoopy.”

From holiday specials and Saturday morning cartoons to the ever-so-popular comic strip, Charlie Brown and Snoopy, children’s lives have been touched for generations upon generations. Everyone involved in the play agrees this is truly a show for the entire family.

“It’s very cute. It’s a very entertaining show, it appeals to all age groups from 5 to100,” Mary Okonkwo, junior theatre major and stage director, explained.

Senior theatre major Jason Wagner who is cast as the character, Snoopy, is especially excited about the multi-generational appeal.

“Everyone knows Snoopy. It’s something that grandparents will bring their grandchildren to and everyone will laugh,” Wagner said.

That is the main objective of this play, entertainment in the form of laughter.

“It’s very true to the Peanuts comic strip. It’s like you’re watching comic strip after comic strip,” Chris Rector, director of the play, said.

If the name of the play isn’t catchy enough, wait until you hear the music. Yes, that’s right – it’s a musical. The music in the play is fun and energetic and will have the audience happily humming as they walk out of the theatre.

While the music will keep your ears stimulated the constant movement and fun-filled dances will be sure not to let your eyes rest.

“There is lots of movement,” said Okonkwo. “I think musicals tend to attract a lot of people anyway, my favorite part is the songs because it’s fun to listen to and all of the choreography is entertaining. The director choreographed the whole play himself.”

The production is almost entirely character driven. We are reunited with all of our Peanut favorites, such as Charlie Brown, Lucy, Linus, Sally, Snoopy, Peppermint Patty and Woodstock. Just as in the comic strip, everyone in the audience will relate to a different character.

“Peppermint Patty is cool because she’s a tomboy and she reminds me of myself,” Okonkwo said.

The most favored character among the cast members seems to be Woodstock, played by Rhealan Wagnon although the character never speaks or sings.

“Woodstock is absolutely hilarious,” Wagnon said. “She has so much energy and personality on stage; I think the audience will really appreciate that part.”

This is probably the most well known play that the theatre department has done in the past two years, and they are anxiously awaiting a good turnout.

“There are two shows already sold out to the area schools for field trips, I think there’s going to be a good response,” Wagnon said.

“Snoopy” is a continuation to the theatre department’s 2001 production, “You’re a Good Man Charlie Brown.” Rector, who graduated in 2002, was actually cast as Charlie Brown in the prequel. This is Rector’s first return to MSU as a director, but he has by no means been out of practice. He teaches theatre at Wichita Falls High School and is currently directing for competitions on the high school level as well. His return has indeed been a good experience.

“My favorite part of the experience has been working with the actors, I come in and they are always ready to go and having fun,” Rector said. “It’s been time consuming, but it’s a good kind of time consuming. It’s something you enjoy doing and something that I will miss when it’s over.”

The rest of the cast is equally excited about opening day, it is obvious that they have spent as much time putting the presentation together as is intended for the audience to have upon viewing.

Tickets for “Snoopy” go on sale March 20 at the box office, which is located in the Fain Fine Arts building. The box office is open Monday through Friday 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. MSU students get in free.

Opening day will be March 2 at 7:30 p.m. and the show will run throughout the weekend.

For more information, call the box office at 940-397-4393.