New students to The University of Toledo will be able to pay the same undergraduate tuition from their first day of college through graduation under the new Toledo Tuition Guarantee plan.

The Toledo Tuition Guarantee, approved Monday by the UT Board of Trustees, establishes a fixed tuition rate for four years to provide price transparency and consistency for families, while also encouraging students to complete their bachelor’s degree in four years.

“I’m glad to be able to offer this price certainty to our students and their families as we continue to strengthen our efforts that encourage students to succeed in their studies, graduate and go on to pursue successful careers,” UT President Sharon L. Gaber said.

“UT for many years has provided an exceptional value to our students with one of the lowest tuition rates among public universities in Ohio. This tuition guarantee plan aligns our commitment to providing a high-quality education at an affordable price with efforts to support student success and raise retention and graduation rates,” said Larry Kelley, UT executive vice president for finance and administration, and chief financial officer.

UT’s tuition guarantee plan begins fall semester 2018 for new degree-seeking undergraduate students who enroll at the University for the first time as first-year students or transfer students. It establishes a fixed rate for tuition, the general fee and select miscellaneous fees, such as for library information and career services. On-campus housing and meal plan rates also are guaranteed. The out-of-state surcharge is not included in the Toledo Tuition Guarantee. Graduate students also are not part of the guarantee program.

Undergraduate students are guaranteed the fixed rate for four academic years, which includes eight consecutive fall and spring semesters, four summer semesters and any intersessions within that period. Students who take classes beyond their four-year guarantee period will pay the tuition rate set for a subsequent cohort.

Students who complete their undergraduate degree within the guarantee period are eligible for a new $500 scholarship toward continuing their education in a UT graduate program if they enroll within three semesters of graduating with their bachelor’s degree.

The Toledo Tuition Guarantee does not impact students already enrolled at UT who will continue under the traditional tuition model.

A collaborative team of administrators, faculty and staff from across the University had worked since April to put together the Toledo Tuition Guarantee plan. The plan has been submitted to the Chancellor of the Ohio Department of Higher Education, who approves requests to adopt guarantee programs.

For additional information on the Toledo Tuition Guarantee, visit utoledo.edu/admission/freshman/tuition/guarantee.

Toledo native and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Michael D. Sallah will return to his alma mater Sunday, Dec. 17, to deliver the keynote address during The University of Toledo’s fall commencement ceremony.

The event will begin at 10 a.m. in Savage Arena.

Sallah will address 2,067 candidates for degrees, including 118 doctoral, 523 master’s, 1,370 and 56 associate’s.

The ceremony is open to the public and can be viewed live at video.utoledo.edu.

Sallah’s investigative work as a reporter and editor with award-winning newspapers across the country has revealed public corruption, police abuses and government blunders, resulting in grand jury investigations, legislative reform, and the recovery of millions of taxpayer dollars.

He is a reporter on the national investigations team at USA Today/Gannett Network in Washington, D.C.

Sallah

“This is where it all began for me,” Sallah said. “From the time I took my first journalism class in the fall of my freshman year, I fell in love with journalism, and UT is a big part of that. It’s part of my foundation — the professors, the values they conveyed to me about journalism, and why it’s so critical to our society, especially investigative work. I’m honored to be coming home to be the commencement speaker.”

“Journalists have an important role to inform the public about the issues that affect our lives, and Michael Sallah has embraced that responsibility uncovering many misdeeds through investigative reporting that resulted in positive change,” UT President Sharon L. Gaber said. “I look forward to him sharing with our graduates how he got his start here in Toledo and inspiring them to stay curious and serve their communities.”

Born in Toledo, Sallah is a 1977 alumnus of The University of Toledo, graduating cum laude with a bachelor of arts degree in journalism. He was named UT’s Outstanding Alumnus in the Social Sciences in 2004. Sallah also is a 1973 graduate of St. John’s Jesuit High School.

He was a reporter and national affairs writer at The Blade for more than a decade, and was the lead reporter on the 2003 project “Buried Secrets, Brutal Truths” that exposed the U.S. Army’s longest war crimes case of the Vietnam War. The series won numerous national awards, including the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting.

While investigations editor and reporter at the Miami Herald, Sallah led an inquiry into local corruption. His team’s 2006 “House of Lies” series exposed widespread fraud in Miami-Dade County public housing and earned the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for Local Reporting. He was named a 2012 Pulitzer Prize finalist for his series “Neglected to Death,” which uncovered deadly conditions in Florida assisted-living facilities, led to the closing of 13 facilities, and was the impetus for a gubernatorial task force to overhaul state law.

During his two years at The Washington Post, Sallah received a Robert F. Kennedy Award for Excellence in Journalism for an investigation that exposed a predatory system of tax collection in the District of Columbia.

He returned to the Miami Herald in 2014 and was named a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 2016 for uncovering one of the nation’s most corrupt sting operations in a police unit that laundered $71.5 million for drug cartels, kept millions for brokering the deals, and failed to make a single significant arrest.

Sallah is the author of the books “Tiger Force: A True Story of Men and War” and “Yankee Comandante: The Untold Story of Courage, Passion and One American’s Fight to Liberate Cuba.” He also was a consultant for the Public Broadcasting Service documentary “American Experience.”

UT’s fall commencement ceremony will recognize graduates from the colleges of Arts and Letters; Business and Innovation; Judith Herb College of Education; Engineering; Graduate Studies; Health and Human Services; Honors College; Natural Sciences and Mathematics; Nursing; and Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences; and University College.

For more information, visit utoledo.edu/commencement.

Join in some holiday cheer at the UT Ritter Planetarium this year and check out two educational and festive shows.

“The Alien Who Stole Christmas,” recommended for children 4 to 10, will run Fridays at 7:30 p.m. through Dec. 22.

Follow along as Santa meets Mr. Feep, an alien from another world, and watch as they go on an adventure to the farthest regions of the solar system.

“Santa’s Secret Star” will run Saturdays at 1 p.m. through Dec. 23.

The program is geared toward children ages 4 to 7 and tells the story of how Santa uses the constellations to find his way around the world on Christmas.

“Santa fans of all ages should attend,” said Alex Mak, associate planetarium director. “These shows are entertaining, educational and seasonal-appropriate.”

Both programs will take place in the full-dome studio and offer an immersive, 3D experience. UT’s full-dome projector, the Spitz SciDome XD, was installed in 2011.

Admission is $7 for adults; $5 for children, UT community members and seniors; children 3 and younger are free.

For more information, call Ritter Planetarium at 419.530.2650 or its 24-hour information hotline at 419.530.4037.

Any parent knows how toys seem to magically multiply and take over a house. Do children need so many toys?

A team of University of Toledo researchers studied whether the number of toys in a toddler’s environment influenced their quality of play. Their findings: less is definitely more when it comes to creative, healthy play.

Dr. Alexia Metz, the study’s lead investigator and a UT associate professor of occupational therapy (right), and Carly Dauch, who was involved in the study as a UT graduate student and received her doctorate in May.

The results of the study come just in time for family and friends who are picking up holiday gifts for the children in their lives. The research, which will appear in the February issue of Infant Behavior and Development, suggests that an abundance of toys may create a distraction. Fewer new toys might be a better route this holiday season.

When toddlers had exposure to fewer toys, they played twice as long with the toys they had and in more sophisticated ways, said Alexia Metz, the study’s lead investigator and a UT associate professor of occupational therapy.

As the mother of 12-year-old twins, Metz has personal experience with the proliferation of toys phenomenon.

“I was astonished by how much our home filled up with stuff,” she said. “I wondered whether there was any risk to having that much stuff.”

Metz said she also had observed people worrying whether their toddlers had attention deficit disorder. Toddlers, by nature, are distractible, but she wondered whether their environment might be a factor in how they played or how easily distracted they were.

Metz and her team of graduate students studied 36 toddlers from 18 to 30 months of age. The children visited the playroom lab twice. On one visit, the children played in a room with just four toys; on the other, they had access to 16 toys.

The team charted how many times the toddler picked up a toy; how long they played with it; and how many ways they played with it.

“When there were fewer toys, they played with them in more ways,” Metz said.

In the 16-toy environment, many of the children played with 10 or more toys in the 15 minutes soon after they entered the room. By flitting from toy to toy, they didn’t take the time to explore the ways they could use each toy, Metz said.

Fewer toys led to “higher quality play,” meaning the toddler stuck with the toy for longer and played with it in more creative ways. Instead of stacking or tipping a toy, they began to hammer with it or feed it or hide it. This increased exploration may support development of motor and cognitive skills.

“Today there is the demand to have the latest and greatest toy that encourages a more technological mind. In this study, we used older toys that encouraged more creative play and tested the theory of is less really more?” said Carly Dauch, who graduated from UT in May following the completion of the study and is now an occupational therapist at the Wood County Board of Developmental Disabilities. “How the children played supported our hypothesis and provides support for deeper and richer play with fewer toys.”

Michelle Imwalle and Brooke Ocasio, who also graduated in May, were the other graduate students involved in the project.

The bottom line for parents: “If your child receives an abundance of toys, you don’t need to introduce them all at once,” Metz said. “Save some for later and swap them out. If they have a chance to explore a few toys at a time, they might have a richer experience.”

This is also good news for families who may feel guilty for not being able to shower their children with dozens of toys.

“They’re not depriving their children of an opportunity for meaningful play,” Metz said. “This is a less is more story.”

To watch a video about the research, click https://youtu.be/E81tCkHP2Us. 

Wednesday, December 13, 2017
Driscoll Alumni Center, Schmakel Room
5:30 p.m. Board of Trustees Social Dinner

Monday, December 18, 2017
Driscoll Alumni Center, Schmakel Room
12:30 p.m. Clinical Affairs Committee Meeting
1 p.m. Academic and Student Affairs Committee Meeting
1:15 p.m. Finance and Audit Committee Meeting
1:30 p.m. Trusteeship and Governance Committee Meeting
1:45 p.m. Board of Trustees Meeting
A luncheon for the trustees will be held at noon in the Driscoll Alumni Center Board Room.