Davenport University Town Hall
Melissa Castro speaking:
So, Ok you guys, we are going to go ahead and get started. You guys are here for the
Town Hall to discuss the new State of Michigan partnership with Davenport University
and the education opportunity you guys will have going forward because of that.
My name is Melissa Castro. I am with the Department of Treasury. I am the administrator
in our Continuous Improvement and Engagement Division. I am welcoming you on
behalf of the Office of Good Government and the Civil Service Commission. We are all
working together on this partnership.
So, real quick I am just going to run through our agenda for today. We are here to talk
about the partnership with Davenport University. We are going to talk a little bit about,
What’s in it for you as an employee, What are the degree options, the class structure, the
enrollment options, the cost, funding options and the enrollment requirements and then at
the end, we will have a little short Q & A, kind of discuss any questions that comes up
throughout the presentation but, to first kick this off and would like to invite Lt. Governor
Brian Calley to come down here to talk to us a little bit about his thoughts on this
program.
(Clapping)
Lt. Governor Brian Calley:
Thank you very much for your interest and coming out. I was just actually thinking that
is, reminiscing, this is where our transitional office was back in, sorry I forgot I was
supposed to be over here, where our transitional office was back in 2010 and time goes so
quickly. Just a few years ago we had launched the Good Government initiative and trying
to really create an environment in State Government where people would be happy about
making a career out of it. You might recall when we started this survey in the very
beginning, really interested in how engage people felt with their employment and one of
the things in the partnership really an outgrowth and feedback that we received from the
survey and some other efforts after that, but what we found was that there are a lot of
people that work in State Government for some time that didn’t see it as much of a
career, didn’t look at being a lot of opportunities for advancement and we wanted to
really change that and thinking about the work that people do in and for State
Government, it is an opportunity to make a difference in people’s lives. That is difficult
to have out in the private sector. I spent a lot of my time in the private sector, more time
in the private then the public at this point and I a can tell you the opportunity to change
and touch people’s lives that is so much greater here.
So, I want to thank you for your work and your part in that and encourage you to take a
hard look at this lifelong learning is something that makes a huge difference even for
myself, I am actually pursuing a master’s in public administration right now. I have a lot
of business education before and really looked at this opportunity currently pursuing that
could bring something new to the table and so being a huge supporter of continuing
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Davenport University Town Hall
lifelong education we wanted to bring to the table a partnership that would remove some
of the obstacles that people face sometimes for getting engaged or getting involved in
pursuing a degree it might be a degree completion at the associate or bachelors’ level or
even going after a master’ s degree as well, and Davenport made a lot of sense for a lot of
reasons.
First of all they are willing to discount the tuition very substantially and you will learn
more about that here in just a few minutes, but very substantially for State employees and
so some strategically important degree areas that will be very helpful in State
Government but really in type of credentials that are very valuable throughout all of our
economy but then also it is a type of school that has a lot of flexibility in accommodating
people that are working full time for those of us like you and the same with me working
full time and pursuing a degree it is hard to fit it in and you need flexibility in order to
make that happen that is the type of school that can give you the flexibility. For my
bachelors and my master’s that I already have where both pursued while working full
time and needing to have those nights and weekends type options and the other thing is
that Davenport has campuses all over the place and opportunities to take classes
regardless of where you happen to be and so all these things come together to really
become a strong partner and so I wanted to be here to encourage you to look at it, to
consider it and hope the outgrowth of it be that you are deciding to be with State
Government for a long time. We look at this as a very positive thing and some people say
it’s trench bureaucracy or whatever, that is totally the wrong attitude.
When my daughter had heart surgery, you know somebody that had been around and
done quite a few times is what we were looking for and so many of the things we do in
State Government there is an expertise that comes along with people making a career out
of it but in order for that to be a good deal for you, we know there needs to be an upper
mobility but we want them to result in.
So I want to invite you also to give me feedback on how about this goes if you decided to
enroll and involved, I want to know how it is suiting your needs, if it is working for you,
if there are other obstacles and I especially want to know some obstacles within State
Government that is preventing you from taking full advantage of this. So I would hope
that we would have a management structure throughout all of State Government that
would be very supportive and accommodating to you pursuing higher education, pursuing
that lifelong learning and if there is an obstacle, something in the way, or somebody in
the way, I would love to know about it, ok, because this is the sort of thing that it ought to
be all positive, so please feel free to do that, to reach out in that way.
So, I will go and end my comments there. Thank you for your interest and involvement
and hopefully we will see you in class and you can achieve your goals through the
partnership with the State and Davenport University. Thank you all!
(Clapping)
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Davenport University Town Hall
Melissa Castro:
Ok so we appreciate the Lt. Governor for coming and speaking to us and I hope this
really demonstrates the importance of this program and now supportive it is all the way
up through the top here.
So see if I can figure out how to run this power point agenda. There we go!
OK, alright so just to talk a little about the partnership and how this all happened. They
mentioned the state wide employee engaged survey and I know you guys have been
through two rounds of that now. One of the things that came out of that is the concern
that there wasn’t a lot of career opportunities and I know a lot of the reason for that is
maybe if you don’t have a bachelors’ degree, you don’t qualify for some of the
professional things and you feel stuck at your level. We felt that at the Department of
Treasury too, that’s why back in 2012 when all of this started. When all that came out at
the department town hall, our treasurer at the time, Andy Dillon, came out and said,
“Hey, guess what? We are going to offer a university program”, and the people that
worked at Treasury said, “Wow, we better figure out how to do that”. So we started
having meetings with a bunch of universities and it came out that Davenport was the one
willing to offer the most flexibility, the best pricing and just all of the things that worked
best to make that happen.
So Treasury started the program with the first person back in May of 2013. We ended up
having about eighty students totaled that enrolled. I think we have lot two or three
students, reason being, they moved to a different department or a different job or
whatever, so that’s a great retention rate that we are having, and of course all of those
employees’ talks to their friends in other agencies like you that said, “Hey, why don’t we
have that opportunity?” Which lead to us working with Civil Service and the Office of
Good Government to get this worked out on a state-wide level and that’s where we are
today, so that is how we ended up with this expansion.
Expansion of this program offers you an associate degree or bachelor’s degree or a
master’s degree in a variety of programs at extremely discounted rates. It is offered to all
State Employees, just your regular full time employees as well as limited term and
student assistants in addition there is a discount for contracted employees, the people we
work with every day that aren’t state employees and a discount for your dependents and
your spouses and Davenport will get more into that later.
So what’s in it for me? Again, associates, bachelor or master’s degree will help you
create a career path. It will help you sustain an upward mobility in your career, whether
you continue here at state services or anywhere else. You are going to have a significally
reduced rate of tuition, the dependent discount and the convenience of going through
Davenport. Davenport is a university that works a lot with adult learners you nontraditional students. So they know how to make this work for people that have full time
jobs, who has spouses and kids and responsibilities so they offer a lot of flexibility like
things like on-line programs, evening programs and weekends, and the last thing you are
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going to have is the resources available from Davenport. You are going to be treated just
like any other Davenport student except for your awesome discount. You are going to
have tutors. You will have access to their on-line services. You will have the same things
as just a regular student.
So, now I am going to turn this over to Marshall Rumsey from Davenport who will
spending some time talking about some of these programs:
Marshall Rumsey:
Thank you Melissa
We identified with feedback based from State of Michigan employees programs that we
would offer at this discounted rate. Davenport specializes in Business Technology and
Health Care, those three fields in associates, bachelors and master’s degree. So these
programs were identified as the “hot” degrees. We are going to be offering to meet a
wide variety of needs.
So at the associate level you see accounting and business administration at the bachelor’s
level you see there’s accounting, there’s business, there’s health and also a technology
degree and at the master’s level, there is MBA. There’s a masters in management and a
lot of people and probably saying, “Well, what’s the difference in those two?” The MBA
is the gold standard business degree at the graduated level. The master’s in management
it is qualitative rather than a MBA which is quantitative. Not everybody wants a MBA.
The Masters in Management was designed for people in government as a non-profit
specifically the finance class for instance one is creating a budget the other one is
managing a budget or more managing the resources.
There is also two IT related. There is a master in Science in Infrastructure Assurance and
also a Master of Science and Technology Management. That degree in Technology
Management not likely took an MBA in IT and related the two together, so it also has
some project management courses it in that would allow to sit for the project
management certification.
Davenport also has some specialty identified through this, Bachelor of Science and
nursing completion for somebody that already has an RN license who wants to go for a
bachelor’s degree and well as a master of science in nursing as well. There are other
program that we do offer that is at a different price at this point and I will touch on those
in a second in case you want to get into something that was not identified on that first
screen.
Class structure in Davenport first and foremost is very, very flexible. We offer in seat
classes. They can be fifteen week semesters or seven week semesters, it really depends on
you and your learning style and what class we are taking. A lot of people, if you took
them and put them in a seven week state class or accounting class they might struggle a
little bit with all the information, well if that is the case you can take the fifteen week
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format it is more drawn out, you might need two days a week in the evening versus the
seven week class where you meet one day a week. On-line classes are only offered in
seven weeks that is your only option is seven weeks. So a lot of times the student will
take a seven week course and have a week break and then one new seven week course.
That’s nice because you are not trying to juggle all these classes at one time, but really
you get to decide on what you want to do. At the graduate level all the courses are seven
weeks long, which is your only option, seven weeks. This enables a student to go seven
weeks, get a break and go another seven weeks to where you can take up to six classes a
year and you really see the light at the end of the tunnel but that is up to you and your
scheduler to determine.
We have campuses throughout the state, so if you move or you get transferred, something
comes up and you are going to be at Traverse City or in Holland or in down in the Detroit
area, we have campuses nearby so, you can take campuses at anyone of our locations or
on-line and on-line obviously has no boundaries, you don’t have to come to campus at all
to take any test, you are one hundred percent on-line. The nice thing about that is
basically if you are on vacation somewhere and you are in a on-line class you can still
participate. Smart phones now do everything you need them to do in your class from your
phone, which is also very, very convenient. Classes are very small and what I mean by
small is less than twenty and if you are in an on-line class that is typically ten to fifteen
so you do have a lot of interactions with your classmates and a lot of one on one time
with your instructor as well. The courses are open to everybody at every campus. You
don’t need to worry about a co-hort; you don’t need to worry about taking one specific
class at a campus. You can take them everywhere, which again opens up the flexibility.
Again, there are many enrollment options and Davenport is very, very transfer friendly.
By a brief show of hands, how many people have looked into undergraduate? And of the
undergraduates, would you attend community college credit and Davenport accepts up to
ninety transfer credit’s and they don’t expire so if you took classes twenty years ago in
community college, we would still utilize those classes. What we would want to do is
take a peek at your unofficial transcripts, officials will be needed at some point, but
unofficials will work to get this process matched the credits you earned in the degree
program you are looking at and utilize your credits. At the graduate level you can actually
transfer nine credits. So if you attended another school and you are working on a master,
you can transfer nine credits in. Not every student might want to go into a degree and
want to take one or two classes. That non-degree seeking option is available. You can
take three classes before you have to declare a major, that’s an option as well. There are
many, many test options. So if somebody has been doing a job for a long time or they are
fluent in a language and they feel like the outcome is already meet in class, they can take
a test, usually pay a small fee for around eighty to hundred dollars, and they will get a
transcripted credit for that class based on just taking that one test. So that is an option and
as a Davenport student our library services would be available to you and they actually
have a long list of classes that you can test out of. That is typically at the undergraduate
level though. Again, if you have many years of experience so you have gone to
workshops or seminars and you might have credit you feel is earned and another way is
you can put together a portfolio, a prior learning assessment that will be evaluation and
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Davenport University Town Hall
turned in for college credit as well. So all these things can be explained after meeting
with an admittance rep and we can go over all that options to best utilize all your past
experience.
Ok, one of the more popular screens is cost and that is one of the big items you are going
to see is the discounts being offered. If you are looking at an undergraduate class, on the
right hand side you see the traditional Davenport University student pays six hundred and
three dollars per credit hour and it is being offered to anyone starting this winter at two
hundred dollars a credit hour, so you are saving around twelve hundred dollars per class
and the classes are three credit hours with everything we have all are three credits hours
with the exception of accounting which is four. So if anybody starts this winter they will
be locked in at that two hundred dollar rate. If you were going to wait until spring to start,
the rate will be higher. It will go up to two hundred and thirty dollars a credit hour so
obviously there is a lot of incentive to start this winter, you lock that price in. If
Davenport experiences a tuition increase, so let’s say if we go up six percent, that is the
percentage, you will go up as well. You will not see drastic changes; you will go with the
percentage that Davenport goes with as well.
These prices that are listed for the programs that was on a couple slides ago, if you
wanted to go into something that was not listed, say you wanted a master’s degree in
finance, you would then pay fifty percent of standard tuition Davenport rate. So anything
that is not part of the group is a fifty percent discount, so obviously there are some
decisions to make, you want to go one route or another is the most cost savings
associated with it as well. If you go and say you start winter and you decide to take
spring-summer off and you start again next fall, you are still locked in at that rate, but if
you miss more than two semesters and then you come back, you will have to come in at
whatever the new current semester is, the new cost. There is an incentive for everyone to
complete their degree as soon as possible for cost savings as well as personal, basically
satisfaction out of that getting your degree. You will also see the graduates’ rates around
here at three hundred thirty three dollars a credit hour for the ones that were listed and a
typical Davenport student pays six hundred fifty three dollars a credit hour and the
graduate level is three credit hours as well.
The fees, the two hundred thirty dollar student fee that is on there, that is per semester fee
so it doesn’t matter if you take one class or you take four, you are still paying two
hundred thirty dollars every semester. Books we average around one hundred to two
hundred dollars per class. It really depends on the class and it really depends on the books
offerings. You can rent books, you can get e-books, and you can buy used books. The
nice thing is that this program has been going on for a while in the State of Michigan
partnerships for agencies so you might have people in your office or other offices that
have taken these classes and still had those books that you can share those same
resources. The same thing holds true at a Davenport campus and there is a bulletin board
that offers used books as well, so it really varies depending on the class. There are
different funding options available for you the student as well. If you didn’t want to pay
cash and if you did decide to pay cash and you did not want to utilize student loans, you
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can break it up into a payment plan so we can break it up into three or four payments per
semester, so you don’t have the lump sum.
There is also the more popular Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA)
student loan. When you fill out your FAFSA it does two things. It will qualify you for
student loan money and also qualifies you for Pell Grant money. Pell Grant money is
constant upon your income. Students loan money is not, so that is more of a given,
however the more student loan money you have, pay back in six months after you
graduate which is more of an investment at this point. Pell Grant money you don’t pay
back and you can also stack it with Michigan Tuition Grant money. Davenport is a
private four year university so we are eligible for Michigan Tuition Grant so that in
possibility with the Pell Grant money could offset all of your charges. You can also mix
it up. You can pay some out of pocket and combine it with student loans, whatever works
best with you.
There are some special programs available. Not sure if anyone is under twenty six, any
dependents and they are a child of a veteran or anybody who was in the police or fire
department who loss their life in the line of duty, there are special programs available for
you as well. I would recommend going on-line and filling out the FAFSA even if you
thought you were going to pay one hundred percent on your own, see if there is any free
money there to utilize. It is always there if you need it. You can always come back to it,
takes about ten minutes to fill it out and it is good for a twelve month period academic
school year.
A dependent, we didn’t really touch on this yet, and it is open to dependents, anybody
that is under thirty years of age, so anybody that has children. Dependents who are under
thirty can take advantage of this program; they’re going to be paying twenty-fiver percent
off the tuition price. It does not matter if they are married and have their own families or
whatever it may be, if they are under thirty they are a dependent, they can take advantage
of this and again they would pay twenty-five percent off of tuition of any of the programs
that Davenport has to offer so that is a nice feature as well.
As said before, you guys are Davenport University students, as well as anybody who
decides to participate in this. So the first thing you would need to do is meet the
administration standards for Davenport University. There are multiple ways to meet the
administration standards. One of the questions I get asked right away is at the graduation
level, is the GMAT or the GRE required? No, it is not. Any of the graduate programs you
do not need to GMAT or the GRE. What we look for is your undergraduate GPA where
you are getting your bachelor’s degree. An unofficial transcript evaluation will tell us that
right away. Another thing is the MM, Master’s in Management. It does not matter what
your undergraduate degree is in, if you have a bachelor’s degree in Theater or music, no
business background what’s so ever, that’s what the program is designed to go into that
without having any pre business core practice. If you wanted to go into the MBA and you
did not have a business degree, myself included, there’s five hundred level graduate
credit classes that you would take to prepare yourself for the six hundred level graduate
course, you would probably take it. It really benefits you, yes it adds on couple more
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classes but in the long run is your satisfaction student success actually goes up as well. So
again, that is all handle on a one on one bases and the administration rep when you call
and make an appointment. All that would be discussed with you as well. First thing like I
said is getting transcripts, any community college, high school transcripts, unofficials will
work to start the process but officials will be needed at some point. I know with the
holidays coming, you want to get enrolled and get this process started and it could take a
little bit longer, that’s why we can use unofficials to get this process started as well.
For graduate students, you need just a couple of additional things, two letters of
recommendation and a copy of your resume. The letter of recommendation is fairly
simple form, standard form that is found on our website, so if you go to Davenport.edu
and you put in letter of recommendation, it is a simple form or you can have a supervisor
write their own letter supporting you as a result. We do ask that they are professional
letters of recommendation, not Mom and Dad because we know they will always give
you glowing reviews, also a copy of your resume, that gets sent in and reviewed and then
we go from there to meet with an advisor.
You get to take advantage of three people at Davenport which is really nice for the
personalized attention. You work with an administration representative, an assigned
advisor and then your financial aid counselor, those are the three people that know you
your entire time so you don’t worry about getting a different person on the phone. It is
open to all advisors and all admission reps, so it is not one particular person that is yours
in handling State of Michigan students, it is open to everybody at every campus, which
also kind of benefits students and meets their schedules. We are in the office until six
thirty in the evening so always somebody available. I would recommend like I stated to
get the process started. Even if you are curious, go out on-line and fill out an application
at Davenport.edu, there’s an apply now button at the top.
People in the State of Michigan partnership do not have to pay an application fee that is
waived for everybody here. What it does is it links any information, transcripts, financial
aid, anything notes to the application and you fill out that application one time for your
entire time, so even if you decided to wait a semester, you still just have the one
application.
Davenport being flexible again has multiple start times. So January fifth is the next term
that starts and right after the holiday’s people might be quite busy so it might not work
for you. If you don’t want to wait until spring in May, we have what is called a winter
two term, so eight weeks after the start of every semester there is another term that starts,
so you can jump in at that point. If the end of February is more attractive than January,
that’s an option that also locks in that two hundred dollar price point as well so you don’t
have to wait until May when that price might go up, you can lock yourself in. So every
eight weeks there is a new jump in point that may get a little more convenient for people.
I recommend call the 1-800 number at 1-800-686-1600 or you can do an in person
appointment. It can be ten minutes an hour, whatever works best for you. That will get all
of your questions answered, which program works best, how are my transcripts, how are
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Davenport University Town Hall
my transferred credits coming in, how is everything going to look and we can kind of put
together a plan. That time if you have your transcripts to actually getting scheduled can
be one hour so we can get you accepted and meet with an advisor, you order your books
and sit back and enjoy the holiday’s before classes start January fifth, so that is pretty
attractive as well.
We do something called yearlong scheduling at Davenport so you know you classes a
year in advance, so you know exactly what is coming at you for planning purposes,
vacation and what not. Like I said, you will be assigned three people that will guide you
through every step of the way and answer all of your questions. In order to qualify for
this discount and get this discount actually applied we have to do an employment
verification process. So you are going to fill out a discount application basically that says
you work at the State of Michigan in that is actually blacked out pay stub and work ID
badge. Those get sent off once a semester to verify that in fact you work for the State of
Michigan and an eligible employee. Then that has to be done by the first week of classes
to have the discount applied. Once the discount is applied, you are good for the semester
but you do need to re do that every semester. If you have spouses or dependent’s utilizing
this discount, there is a simple verification form basically linking the two of you together,
making them eligible for the discount as well. If you like forgot, this is when your
administration rep would come in, they call and say “Hey, did you get that taken care of
yet?” Also email reminders that way we can make sure that their discount always gets
applied on time. So it is a pretty simple process to get qualified for the discount.
If anybody here or on-line is actually a member of military or veteran active, it does not
matter; Davenport is a designated military friendly school. Top five-top ten military
university as well. We will make sure all the military transcripts are in order and takes
less than ten minutes, we can convert that to college credit as well as making sure all the
benefits are processed accordingly as well, make sure everybody gets the maximum
benefit.
With that, I am going to turn this back over to Melissa to go over resources and contact
information.
Melissa Castro:
We just want to make sure you have all the correct contact information you need if you
need to get in touch with anyone. There was a FAQ document upstairs, hopefully you
grabbed a copy of that.
This is a bit of a living document. We are getting a lot more questions as we go so check
back in on that occasionally because as we get more questions, we may add some things
to that document.
Information with Davenport is up there. Where to go for your degree there with SOM
degree program plus the website.
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There will be departmental liaisons established within each department, we are not quite
there yet because we wanted to get this rolled out pretty quick to you guys so you would
have the opportunity to start in January so we are still filling in some of the details around
that but we will have that up shortly with the list with appropriate person in your
department, if there’s a question that you are just finding anywhere else you can go
through them. And we also have the Civil Service Commission, Angela Shelby over here
that is kind of our manager of this at the state wide level.
Additionally, I would like to say on behalf of Treasury we have a student, Kat Kratz that
is here that is going to talk today and just give you a little bit of her experience on how
the program has worked for her, so go ahead Kat.
Kat Kratz:
Hello!
My name is Katherine Kratz, I go by Kat frequently. I work in the Treasury Budget
Office and although I have worked for state for nine years, I don’t have any managerial
experience so I am currently enrolled in the MBA program with a strategic management
focus. Hoping that maybe having a little MBA in my back pocket might make me more
competitive. When I am potentially hiring for a managerial position and maybe I am
competing with some kids who, I can say kids now, right?, some kids that maybe went
for their MBA straight after their bachelor’s. I am really hoping that will give me some
competitive advantage of having work experience and a master’s degree so that is kind of
why I went into that and additionally my husband is currently a full time student and
somehow I glamourize being a student because apparently I do not remember, now that I
know. When I just heard that the Treasury partnership was coming out, I was kind of like,
Oh, that’s a great idea, but at the time I kind of had not quite a two year old at home so I
was like Oh, that’s not going to happen, but the more I thought about that if I didn’t do it
now I might not even do it and I never knew if it was going out to everybody or there
may not be another co-hort class starting if I waited a year so I jumped on it and I am
very glad that I did.
The master’s program that I am in is doing the seven week, you do seven weeks of one
class and then you get a week off and then another seven weeks and that is awesome! I
really like that format because I am only doing one class at a time, gives me time with my
now three year old and also as soon as we put her to bed, turn the TV off and both of us
are doing our homework, it is not as glamorous that at first I thought it might be but I am
in my eight class now and I believe I have four more classes and then my capture will be
next fall so hopefully I will stick with it. It has really been a good experience. What I
thought was going to be a mountain, you know you kind of take it as it goes and
sometimes you get in one of those crazy classes and you only have to hang on for seven
weeks.
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Also my first year we did a co-hort and blended in-class so we would meet physically in
classroom once a week but starting this year we kind of split half of the co-hort went with
accounting focus and half of us when with the strategic management focus so now we are
doing on-line classes and I have never had an on-line class until this past seven week
course and it was a little hectic at first because I am know of old school, I like to write
my notes, so it was a little weird at first, but I caught on and this class have been a breeze.
We are just finishing up our third week out of seven.
So, again it has been a really great experience. They really, the professors are awesome.
A lot of them have great work experience, really adds something to like your discussion
boards post. You actually can apply it too. Like right now I am in a leadership, effective
leadership class, kind of having management and experience with managers and
supervisors, you can kind of , Oh, their one of those, it’s pretty applicable, very helpful.
How do I manage my work life balance? I do not know. Again, I have a three year old
and I really carve out time for her. You know in the hustle and bustle of your forty hour
week, you know you go pick up the kids form day care, you eat, you give her a bath, and
then you put her to bed and then you do homework. My weekends, I really try to dedicate
to her as long as she is awake, I am really trying to run around with her as much as
possible. She is never going to be three again, she is very fun right now, and then again
when she goes to bed or she’s taking a nap, that is when you have to crack down to carve
out that time. So, as far as having any advice for this, I know the classes that I have had
in both the in-seat and on-line, the professors are good putting it all there right in the
beginning. So if you are really organized and you can work ahead, do it, because that will
give you your one night off to go with husband or family or whatever, to play with your
kid, not waiting until the last minute to do everything and a lot of professors are really
good at. Maybe you are only half way through a week and you want to know what is
going on next week so they are really good at putting that out there and if they have it and
if you ask them, they will. So it has just been very good back and forth communication
with them and just overall awesome experience, so I hope you guys take advantage
because who knows when you are really going to do it, don’t jump on it.
So, does anybody have any questions, like a student perspective? No, OK, Melissa
(Clapping)
Melissa Castro
:
Thank you, Kat. And we also have a lot of people at Treasury who share Kat’s
enthusiasm for the program so, you know if you do want to talk to somebody, feel free to
reach out to me and maybe I can connect you with someone like maybe Kate and talk
with you further. If you are a little concerned, I know it is scary going back to school. I
did it myself about four years ago and I was pretty terrified but once you get in, it is fine
so if you want to talk to somebody about that, I would be happy to hook you up with that.
So, with being said, we are kind of done. Do you have any questions for us?
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Davenport University Town Hall
That two hundred thirty dollars that you said is for each semester, is that per seven
week?
No, good question: That is actually per semester, fifteen week semester. Davenport
recognizes each semester as a fifteen week period and the seven week middle start point
that happens to be there for your benefit. Winter is considered January through the end of
April.
I have been going to Davenport since 2007 and almost at the end of my associates’
degree because I have children at home, working full time. I will be done with my
associates in spring semester so does that mean I have to wait until fall to actually enroll
in the program to get my bachelor’s?
No, good question: I am glad you brought that up. Anybody who has attended or
currently attending Davenport right now, who has not earned their degree, is considered a
reenter student. They get to bypass the admission process and they jump right in working
with their advisor. Your current advisor that you have right now can apply that discount
this coming January. So what you want to do is contact your advisor, advisors are well
trained on this as well, and they can get the appropriate codes put on, you would have to
go on and verify your employment though, however.
Alright, awesome!
You said you recognize ninety credits or that you can transfer ninety credits to another
institution and you take prior experience so that does that mean if you come in with a
associate’s degree and working on your bachelor’s taking through the State, does that
mean really by the time you coming the two, you would be closer to being a senior
whether then a junior or is there a minimum or maximum?
Your cap is ninety credits per year that you can apply. Schools have what is called
“residency requirements”, so you can’t transfer in one hundred and eighteen credits and
take one class at Davenport and get your degree. You have to take a minimum of thirty
hours credit at Davenport but underneath that ninety, it’s wide open. So you can do your
associates and combine it with other things. You just have to everything applied to the
program you are looking at. The General Business bachelor’s degree that was up for
instance have twenty four elective credits so if you had taken a ratchet ball class at
Lansing Community College in 1987, that would still plug in one of open electives so
there is a lot of different options. We can take those credits plus the prior learning
assessment and apply it.
You talked a little about payment and the options and the books. The cost of the books
are not included if you are paying cash. If you are utilizing financial aid, there is
something that can be done and that is called a book voucher, which is like an on-line
coupon. You can go on-line and order your books. If you are paying cash and let’s say
you started in January, you can sign up for the payment plan and you would split that up
to four equal payments. One in January, one February, one March and one April and that
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Davenport University Town Hall
is something that would be handled by your advisor and your admission rep could help
you with that process as well.
So other than books is there other cost?
Yes, your registration fee and then the tuition as well
Do you have to take the GMAT for the Master’s degree program?
No, the GMAT and the GRE are not required for any of the quadrant program
Is there a deadline for FAFSA to be filled out?
No the FAFSA can be filled out anytime. Actually that is for the State grant money
because that money gets allocated at a first come, first serve basis. The Pell grant does
not have an expiration date nor does the FAFSA itself. So if you wanted to start in
January fifth, you can still technically fill out your FAFSA on January fifth, the money
pays out to the school after the classes start, so nope, I would recommend you getting the
done as soon as you can.
You mentioned the discount rate of fifty percent, if you pick a program that is not on your
list. If an individual would take a class that does fall under some of the qualifying
programs, would they take the full discounted rate and then a partial on the ones that are
not then?
Good question
It is actually your major code that determines that. So if your major code is accounting,
and that is one of the qualifying programs, and half way through you decided to change
your mind, which is OK, and you changed to finance, the classes that you had taken that
were accounting at the discounted rate, once you change your major and it falls under one
that is not eligible then it becomes that fifty percent.
What about the Professional Development fund, is that for NERE employees, can you use
that still?
You can and if there is not a link in the FAQ’s, we will put one in there but, if you to the
Office of State Employer website their intranet and then just put in their search engine
“tuition reimbursement” and it will come up and you can use that and I believe it is up to
twelve hundred dollars a year and I think the requirement is a “C” or better for a
undergraduate and a “B” or better for a graduate. You don’t get it until you are done with
your class and you have to show them the proof of your grade and completion and then
they reimburse you at the end of your class.
We have also included many links, so if you go to the State of Michigan degree program
at Davenport website, all of the links and all of the FAQ’s will be embedded on that
webpage as well.
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Davenport University Town Hall
Also if you are not a NERE’s, if you are a union employee, contact your union
representative, because some of the different unions have programs as well. Ask your
supervisor as they should know as well or ask one your peers, check with HR, there
should be a list I am guessing on your intranet page somewhere.
Any further questions?
Again, I would recommend everybody visiting our website and filling out an application
and going to the FAQ page as well as calling the 1-800 number and we will get you
speaking to and admittance representative soon.
Also, you guys if you go back to your office, talk to your co-workers about this, the ones
that weren’t able to come you know. Drum up some interest in the program. I think it is a
really great program, great program to be involved with and we want to make sure
everybody knows about it so, thank you for coming.
If you filled out a LEAD card, Collen and Amy will collect them at the top of the stairs
and what that will do is get you in direct contact with an admittance representative. They
will call you and so if we can set up an appointment to answer any questions, so they will
collect those at the top
Thank you
Thanks
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