As I began to set up the new temporary Hilltop Monitor office in the Pryor Learning Commons room 207–the office space previously used by The Tucker Leadership Lab–I encountered several voice messages on the phone. These 15 messages left by 14 different callers were intended to reach the ears of Tucker administrative staff in hopes of scheduling programs with the Lab. 

The messages often included statements such as, “The last several years, we have had [a group] come over and work with you guys. It has been a great experience and we would like to continue that.” Many callers were reaching out to confirm details for programs, a few were scheduled for only a week or two after the message had been sent.

So, what was the Tucker Leadership Lab? Where did it go? Why did these requests go unanswered?

The Tucker Leadership Lab

The Tucker Leadership Lab was an experiential learning facility and challenge course that provided leadership growth opportunities to Jewell, Liberty and the Greater Kansas City area.

According to Eric Blair, William Jewell College’s Vice President of Marketing, Enrollment and Student Life, the Tucker Leadership Lab “is a program created from a project through a Pryor Leadership Fellow cohort in the early 2000’s. Its goal and purpose is to create experiential learning opportunities that includes students of William Jewell College.”

A former employee of the Lab described it as: “A safe place for groups [of all ages] middle school and up… to explore concepts such as team building, trust, communication, boundaries, respect, challenge by choice, self-esteem and more, using hands-on activities… The possibilities were endless and the learning opportunities abounded.” 

Al Leone, the former Director for the Tucker Leadership Lab says: “Tucker was an experiential Swiss army knife for team development. We provided a variety of problem-solving activities to clients to help them develop their individual leadership capacity as well as their ability to thrive in a team… We worked with everyone from fifth graders to corporate professionals because our philosophy was that everyone could benefit from learning to be better together. Tucker benefited William Jewell by being a positive, outward-facing arm of the organization… Tucker cultivated a positive connection [between Jewell and the] community.”

Where did Tucker go and why were the voice messages never answered?

Effective on June 30, 2023, Leone resigned from her positions at William Jewell College: student success navigator, director for People and Culture Development and director for the Tucker Leadership Lab. Leone’s responsibilities at Tucker included marketing, program design and delivery, budgeting, client payments, staffing, training, and payroll. Leone was also charged with maintaining the Tucker Leadership Lab grounds and courses as well as creating strategic plans for the Lab’s organizational growth. Upon Leone’s departure, these roles needed to be filled quickly to maintain Tucker operations and to deliver the upcoming programs that had been scheduled. 

Several experienced Tucker Facilitators–the Tucker Staff members who were primarily responsible for program delivery–volunteered to temporarily cover the necessary tasks immediately following Leone’s absence. Despite having asked a few of the current facilitators to fill the administrative gap, the Tucker Leadership Lab Director position remained vacant through the following month. In that month, Conner Hazelrigg, the Executive Director of Jewell Unlimited, offered Jewell Unlimited’s support to the President’s Cabinet. In conjunction with her advisors on the cabinet, William Jewell College President Dr. Elizabeth MacLeod Walls arranged for Jewell Unlimited and, ultimately, the program’s Executive Director to take on the administrative functions of the Tucker Leadership Lab. This administrative change was made effective on July 1, 2023.

Hazelrigg sent an email to Tucker Staff on July 3 to inform the team of the administrative change. In this email, Hazelrigg stated “[Jewell Unlimited’s] initial goal is to understand and support [The Tucker Leadership Lab’s] existing processes…Ultimately, the goal will be to take what we’ve learned and create a clear and transparent plan for moving forward.” Blair, who serves on the President’s Cabinet in addition to his other titles at Jewell explained: “Jewell Unlimited was asked to simply provide oversight and review/manage accounts payable. The Department of Business and Leadership was tasked with beginning to re-imagine the organizational structure and programming opportunities for students.”

The next update came to Tucker Staff on July 18 via an email from Hazelrigg. The update was that, effective immediately, the build-low structures, the Tucker Tower and the Odyssey ropes course could no longer be used for events. In an interview with The Hilltop Monitor, Hazelrigg explained that “The College’s insurance company requires that an FTE employed by the College is certified by ACCT.” The ACCT is the Association for Challenge Course Technology, an organization working to enhance the standardization and quality of challenge courses. While Leone held credentials from ACCT, no other William Jewell College employees were required to have one before her resignation and did not acquire one following her departure. The restrictions were stated to extend through the end of the month. Jewell Unlimited promptly began contracting scheduled clients to make necessary program adjustments. Lead Facilitators–Tucker staff typically tasked with client communication regarding programs–were instructed to make no contact with clients. Following the changes in program delivery, several scheduled programs lacked staffing as Facilitators were uncomfortable hosting programs so differently from their design. 

In the week of July 27, 2023, Alpine Towers, the comprehensive challenge course provider responsible for designing and building the Tucker Leadership Lab courses, performed an inspection on the Tucker courses. The College received the report from this inspection in the following week. 

When asked about the report, Hazelrigg stated, “The inspection identified several components of our local operating procedures that were out of compliance…[and] areas of the Tower itself and lower builts that failed the inspection.” However, in a statement sent on September 25 to Jewell staff, faculty and students, Dr. MacLeod Walls described there to be only one element of the course that “failed a safety standard.” The Hilltop Monitor was unable to view the inspection report. While the exact results of the inspection are not clear, Tucker’s 23-year-old course was certainly nearing the expected end of the typical 25-30 year expected life span of such challenge courses. 

Blair describes that even before the administrative transition occurred, the College had been discussing whether or not it was worth it to “reinvest in a physical structure,” considering “innovation and fiscal impact.”

On Aug. 11, 2023, Hazelrigg informed Tucker staff that all components of the Tucker Leadership Lab were to be immediately suspended. Jewell Unlimited promptly canceled all scheduled programs. When interviewed, Blair stated that “The staffing dynamic was a significant contributor to the pause in operations…[Jewell Unlimited] determined it would be in the best interest of clients and the College to pause operations rather than provide inconsistent service.”

In a meeting on the morning of Sept. 12, Jewell Administration communicated to Tucker Staff that the full suspension of Tucker activities was being extended through the calendar year and that all Tucker Facilitator positions were being removed. In a follow-up email to former Tucker Staff, Hazelrigg stated: “We are extending the suspension of all activities through the rest of the calendar year while we re-format the scope of the Lab’s offerings and re-incorporate the management into the Pryor leadership program. This will put it under the Department of Business at William Jewell College. Considering this, we are eliminating all part-time facilitator positions, and your services as a facilitator are no longer required.” Former Tucker staff were shortly thereafter asked to schedule a time to collect any personal belongings they may have been storing with Tucker supplies.

What is next for Tucker?

The good news for the Jewell community is that the Tucker Leadership Lab will be continuing to some degree at Jewell. Although the scope and offerings of this newly designed Tucker Leadership Lab have yet to be determined, Blair states that the Lab “will be re-incorporated into the Pryor Leadership Fellows program…under Dr. Kelli Schutte, chair of the Department of Business and Leadership.”

Some hints at what this modified Tucker might look like are found in the September 25 statement by Dr. MacLeod Walls: “The Tucker experience, which is focused on experiential leadership education, will continue through the Business and Leadership department and the Pryor Leadership Program through Outward Bound and many other elements of our leadership curricula at Jewell.”

Room 103 in Jewell Hall has since been labeled with a sign saying “Pryor Leadership Studies & Tucker Leadership Lab.” Blair explains that the faculty who lead both programs have offices in Jewell Hall, making the building an effective space to run these initiatives. Classes for Pryor Leadership students and programs for Tucker Leadership will still be held in the Pryor Leadership Development Center building.

Interviews

The following is a series of responses from interviews with several people that were conducted by The Hilltop Monitor. Interviews included are with Blair, Hazelrigg, Leone and two former Tucker Leadership Lab employees who will remain anonymous.

Please describe the reasons for suspending climbing and then, ultimately, all Tucker programs.

Hazelrigg: In short, the College is bound by standards for different practices as a way to decrease our exposure to risk. The College’s insurance company requires that an FTE employed by the College is certified by ACCT, in order to meet the standards. The pause on the lab’s activities was the only way at that time to eliminate the risk from a legal and insurance standpoint. You can read more about this on the ACCT website… It was confirmed that the built lows were considered structures that had to abide by the ACCT standard… The inspection identified several components of our local operating procedures that were out of compliance. Additionally, it identified areas of the Tower itself and lower builts that failed the inspection. The report was not all bad. The inspector spoke highly of many different aspects of the lab. The fact remains, though, there are aspects that need to be updated, changed, and attended to for the current lab to be brought up to appropriate standards.

Blair: The staffing dynamic was a significant contributor to the pause in operations. The exited director left a significant administrative gap, but she also contributed significantly to facilitating on the course. [Jewell Unlimited] determined it would be in the best interest of clients and the College to pause operations rather than provide inconsistent service. JU was asked to simply provide oversight and review/manage accounts payable. The Department of Business and Leadership was tasked with beginning to re-imagine the organizational structure and programming opportunities for students.

What insight can you provide regarding ACCT certifications? 

Leone: The ACCT does not have a specific requirement for staff certification in their standards. Staff should be trained by a qualified and competent individual. However, there is nothing stating that they need to hold a certification from ACCT to provide programming. I can’t speak to the certifications that other Directors held during their tenure at Tucker. However, while I was Tucker’s steward, staff were not generally certified through ACCT. I provided what is called an in-house certification based upon the trainings and documented skills checks that facilitators completed. I was their qualified, competent trainer and they were certified to work at Tucker.

What insight can you provide regarding thoughts on closing the Tucker Leadership Lab before your resignation?

Leone: President MacLeod Walls met with Kevin Shaffstall and Dr. Kelli Schutti in April of 2022 to inform them that Tucker would be closing effective at the end of the month. Many folks at Jewell were working diligently behind the scenes to prevent that for as long as possible… When the President first told Kevin to shut Tucker down, she said that the Lab was not profitable. What she meant was that the Lab did not make a 1.5 [profit over investment] return on budgeted investment each year. Please keep in mind that Kevin Shaffstall and I had never been given that expected revenue until 2022. In fiscal year ’22-’23 we did hit that mark. However, not all line items were placed appropriately in other accounts and so, on paper, it looks like we didn’t. I believe Tucker first moved under Jewell Unlimited because Dr. Schutte did not feel comfortable with it under the Business Department without the supervision of Kevin Shaffstall.

How did the experience of facilitating programs after the suspension of climbing and built-low equipment compare to previous events? 

Former Tucker Staff Member: Having our climbing and built-low equipment empowered the ideal working day. However, we still gave our groups a good experience. We all have had groups off-site or have moved an outdoor program indoors when the weather was poor (lightning, cold, etc.). When the built equipment was suspended, the other facilitators and I transitioned to our portable equipment and continued to provide quality experiences to the best of our abilities. Unfortunately, some groups did cancel because they had been to Tucker in previous years and knew that they wanted a climbing experience. This decision did challenge the other facilitators and myself because there was a lack of clarity on the reasoning behind it. We were left unable to fully explain the situation to our clients and that hurt morale, as we felt like we weren’t trusted to do a job that we had been trained to provide and had been providing for many years.

What do you think the Jewell Community should know about the ongoing situation regarding the Tucker Leadership Lab?

Hazelrigg: I think it is important to recognize that [the Tucker Leadership Lab] has been a valuable and beloved part of the Jewell, Northland and Greater Kansas City communities. The decision to pause the lab was not cavalier, not without cause, and certainly not easy. In fact, it was quite hard. Something can be fantastic and memorable, but that doesn’t entitle it to exist forever. Higher education and not-for-profits are not insulated from the economic hardships that for-profit businesses have to overcome. Increased prices of goods, gas, labor, insurance, etc. all make it harder for a business to survive. The simplest way I can put it is that TTLL is a product brand of WJC. It is a valued brand that isn’t going away. In order for that brand, and the good work it represents, to be sustainable, the College is carefully considering what it will look like going forward. The continued pause allows for that consideration to be thoughtful and complete, in hope of a future plan that benefits the College and TTLL alike.

Leone: I hope they know that this wasn’t our choice. Further, I hope they know that everything that my staff did at the Leadership Lab was always in the context of highest safety and highest quality. The staff at Tucker care deeply about their work. Even on the toughest days in extreme weather or with a rough team, they still maintained a positive attitude.  I could not have asked for a more incredible group of people to work with every day and they fought hard to seek understanding and provide clarity to Jewell Unlimited on our scope of work.

It would be unfair to ignore the fact that the Tucker Lab was coming due for some big repairs. Everything has a life cycle and a typical challenge course lasts 25-30 years. However, the money for repairs existed in our deferred maintenance account and we continued to bring in surpluses that were supposed to go to this fund. I think what we are looking at isn’t a situation of ‘does the money exist’ but something like, is Tucker a priority for the institution? Based upon the behavior (treatment of myself and the team, representation of the program to community stakeholders, investment of time and resources) of Jewell Unlimited and the President, I don’t think it is. 

Former Tucker Staff member: One of the first things I talk to my groups about is how important integrity and honesty is when working with groups of people.  I feel that has been lacking with this situation.

Former Tucker Staff member: I hope for the Jewell Community to be empowered to make their own decisions, acknowledge emotions as they arise, and seek to be well informed. Jewell Unlimited may have much to offer and seems to be a decent program separate from Tucker Leadership Lab. However, the fact [that] WJC and Jewell Unlimited terminated existing Tucker Facilitators while using the Tucker name to gain clientele, and [then] communicating with the community that Tucker will re-open, feels disrespectful. Not a single facilitator terminated…was given any impression we would be provided the opportunity to be re-hired when Jewell attempts to re-open Tucker in 2024. 

Do you have any further comments, concerns or anything you would like to share? 

Former Tucker Staff member:  I would like to share a few examples of how I have seen time at Tucker impact our participants. These are just a handful and each facilitator has their own stories to share about the power of our work. In past groups: I have had a student that was taken from his home for abuse, and had not spoken the entire time he had been at his school, and he talked that day with his group, telling them it was the best day of his life.  I had an adult that was very sarcastic most of the day and finally asked me if he could change something he had said earlier to his team.  I told him yes, and he shared he had a critically ill child and didn’t know if he would live.  His whole team told him what they would do, so he could have all the time he needed to be with his son. I had a girls’ sports team that would not talk to each other when they started, and at the end of the day, they were hugging and crying and said they learned to talk any issues out, and they wouldn’t ever let it be an issue for them again.  This season [in] 2023, I had a girl that wouldn’t join the group in the beginning of the day, and finally started to participate. She finally shared with me that she was going through a lot of trauma. I emailed the contact, and they were going to get her in touch with her counselor.  I also had a teacher that said her budget had been cut and they hadn’t been able to come the previous year. She said that the students were so much better when they were able to come to Tucker, that she was going to use her own money if they couldn’t come up with the finances to come. This is the difference that we make to participants and I wish it was more valued by Jewell. 

Former Tucker Staff member: It is a shame Jewell Unlimited took over management only to terminate the existing Tucker Team. Originally I was led to believe Facilitators would be included in the change process, and that communication would be transparent, which was not the case. WJC students and Tucker clients deserve better. I saw myself working with Tucker for years to come. Now that opportunity is gone. 

The history of William Jewell College dates all the way back to the mid-nineteenth century when the College was established in 1849 by prominent men in the Baptist Convention and in the community, well-supported by a large donation from William Jewell. From 1849 to 2003, Jewell was a Baptist college. During the Civil War, the campus was shut down and turned into grounds for a hospital, lookout, and a stable. It was not until the 1920s that Jewell welcomed women to the campus, and even later in history, they welcomed their first full-time Black student, Bill “Pee-Wee” Summers, in 1961.

Today, the campus looks completely different. Jewell remained expensive and therefore inaccessible for many individuals until recently. The College is attended by mostly white students and a low percentage of culturally diverse students. However, the admissions department is working hard to make the campus as diverse as the surrounding Kansas City area. 

Eric Blair, vice president of enrollment and marketing, was ready and willing to share many different numbers, marketing strategies and all the efforts that have been implemented to diversify the campus. When talking about diversity, Blair acknowledges the wide field of identities – including BIPOC, low-income, first-generation, disabled, LGBT, international, LatinX students and more. 

“We want to be more accessible as an institution to students. Taking that down from a verbiage or policy to the operational sense, we are being as representative as possible in our materials, in our visuals, and in our language,” said Blair. 

Blair said that in recent years Jewell has started a “holistic” admission process.  The program began because Jewell’s admissions team realized standardized tests like the ACT or SAT are sometimes a significant barrier, especially for students in low-income areas. Now, when looking at applications, these test scores are no longer a barrier. Admissions wants to see prospective students in the workforce and in any other community involvement possible. Blair says this puts an equity lens on the admission process so they can identify students of promise who otherwise may have slipped through the cracks because of standardized tests. 

During the pandemic, many schools have done away with the need for these, often costly, tests. But Blair stressed that this has been an ongoing conversation at Jewell for years now, and they have no intention of stopping this holistic admission process after the pandemic. 

“Most students didn’t pay anything near the published tuition, but that got lost in that sticker price,” said Blair. “It was counterproductive to the message of accessibility to say ‘here’s this big price out here. We’re an elite private institution, you have to have an elite pocketbook to access the institution.’ This just wasn’t the case, so we worked to clarify that.” 

Both the departments of financial aid and admissions hope this message will debunk the idea that, for a Jewell education, you have to have a pocketbook bigger than the campus itself. Blair said admissions wants students to come to campus and see themselves before even committing to Jewell. They want to have multiple different communities available from the moment a student steps onto campus in order to celebrate as many students as possible. Blair emphasized that representation matters, and while this conversation of representation is important, the numbers speak for themselves.

“Our BIPOC students have increased from single digit numbers to 27 percent over the last couple of decades,” Blair said. “That was sped up in the mid-2000s, so really in the last 15 years. We are trying to do more.”

When thinking about the BIPOC percentage in the Kansas City Metro area, Jewell wants to be as representative of the region as possible. He says they have a goal to have over a third of the campus be racially and ethnically diverse.  The class of 2024 is the most diverse in the history of the College, which demonstrates a commitment to these goals. 

Blair emphasized that this number can be skewed in multiple ways. If they said the school is 36 percent diverse in a broad sense, they also have to acknowledge that the cohort grew, clarifying that the last class grew 12 percent. Incrementally, the number grew, and this is their main focus. 

Blair stated that without a “huge tapestry” of backgrounds, students cannot enjoy a rich classroom experience. Jewell wants to continue welcoming as many students from as many backgrounds as possible for the sake of diversity and learning but also from a monetary standpoint. Blair knows that the campus needs students to pay the bills and keep being sustainable as a not-for-profit institution but also knows that only doing this with white students is not helpful to the campus mission. 

“We are not fulfilling our mission if we found ways to be sustainable through only white students,” Blair said. “Yes, we could meet the goal to be sustainable, but we would lose the other mission of creating a diverse campus that all students could enjoy.” 

It appears as though Jewell is pushing hard to make the campus as diverse as possible to make as many students as possible feel welcome. In the coming years students, faculty and staff will keep voicing concerns and pushing for change. Despite progress not always being explicitly clear, conversations are continually being had in conference rooms (or, more likely, Zoom calls) about how to improve Jewell’s diversity and inclusion.

It has been almost a month since William Jewell College students were first notified about the 45 percent discount to tuition that will be implemented starting in the fall 2021 semester. The initial panic caused by the announcement has since ceased, but some students still hold concerns over their hard-earned scholarships being reduced as a result of the tuition drop.

“We are eliminating that perception barrier by making our published tuition more in line with the true cost of attendance that our students experience now. In turn, this will keep more prospective students considering Jewell longer and give us a chance to show more families all Jewell has to offer,” said Eric Blair, vice president of enrollment and marketing.

The dramatic cut to tuition means that the scholarships are also being reduced dramatically in proportion to the new cost structure. The allocation of aid dollars between the academic, athletic and need scholarships does not significantly change percentage-wise, but how the awards are managed within each category will be shifting. The most notable change is the size of individual awards, and for some awards the qualifying criteria may have changed slightly as well.

The criteria for academic scholarships that must be met and maintained to qualify for financial aid have not changed substantially but have been posted on the Jewell website as follows.

Incoming first-year students must have a minimum 3.3 cumulative high school GPA and either a minimum 24 ACT or 1170 SAT score in order to qualify for academic scholarships. These rewards are renewable for four years with the maintenance of a minimum 2.5 cumulative GPA. For incoming transfer students, a 3.3 cumulative GPA is needed to qualify for aid and is renewable for two years as long as a minimum 2.5 cumulative GPA is maintained. Higher amounts of initial aid are awarded as GPA and test scores increase.

The athletic scholarships are another aspect of the new financial structure that will be experiencing change, mainly concerning how the aid is awarded within the individual athletic programs. The athletic programs will have more flexibility in this new system as to how they will award scholarships within their budget. Coaches will also have the ability to adjust the awards for players that are considered more significant contributors to the team.

The major changes for the rest of the scholarships that the school offers are based on dollar amount. Talent scholarships offered for cheer, dance, debate, athletic band, vocal and instrumental music, and theatre performance and design/tech now range in amount from $500 to $3,000 per year. The need-based scholarships have also been reduced in size, but Blair reassures that a priority towards these awards such as the Shape the Future grant and the Housing Impact award will be maintained under this new system.

One program that has experienced significant change in financial aid is the Oxbridge Honors Program. Previously, students accepted into the program all received $26,000 per year. During the junior year, that amount was given as a Journey Grant for study abroad. In the new scholarship structure, instead of all the students receiving the same Oxbridge scholarship, there are now three types of scholarships. These include $9,250 a year to eleven students per class, 100 percent of tuition given to two students per year and 100 percent tuition as well as room and board given to two students per year. The main concern for the Oxbridge students is the aid they were promised for the junior year abroad, but it has been reassured that they will still receive proportional aid with a significantly increased dollar amount during that year.

To engage further transparency in the affordability of Jewell, the amounts of various awards not previously disclosed prior to acceptance will be published on the website. This will allow prospective students to get a better idea of the aid they are eligible to receive and hopefully prompt application to Jewell.

As well as making Jewell seem more affordable and achievable for prospective students, the College reassures that they are making a commitment to keep the total out-of-pocket cost at a relatively similar place for current students, most students will even be paying $300 to $500 less next year.

“We are committed to ensuring students pay no more net tuition and fees than they were prior to the change in the published price with the goal of giving some dollars back to as many students as possible,” said Blair.

In-depth information on the scholarships beginning in the fall 2021 semester is available here, and students who have questions about the effect of the tuition reduction on their financial aid package can schedule a virtual meeting with the office of financial aid here.

On the morning of Aug. 31, William Jewell College students received individualized letters from Eric Blair, vice president of enrollment and marketing, alerting them to a 45 percent discount to tuition set to take effect starting in the fall of 2021. Jewell’s full-time undergraduate tuition, which currently stands at $33,500, will be reduced to $18,360. Room and board costs will also be slightly reduced.

Along with being alerted to the tuition reduction, students were told in these letters that their Jewell scholarships would be reduced – so that students will have approximately the same net cost at the new rate. However – due to reduction in room and board costs – Blair shared that Jewell students, on average, would actually be paying between $300-$400 less under the reduced tuition, despite the proportional reductions in institutional aid. Each student who received this letter was given an approximation of the new cost of attending Jewell for the 2020-21 academic year. 

When explaining why the College decided to make this nearly 50 percent reduction to their tuition cost, Blair shared that the move was chiefly motivated by a desire to make Jewell appear more transparent, accessible and affordable than its previous sticker price had led prospective students to believe.

“When we looked at data and perceptions of students and families in the market, they did not understand the true affordability and the value of Jewell. The price point that we were at and where it placed us in the market – the sticker price – that $45,000 [tuition plus room and board] cost in the market created the perception that Jewell was inaccessible and unaffordable by many families to which it is actually accessible and affordable once we were able to engage them in an aid conversation and give them scholarships,” Blair said. “Our goal with the change is to create clarity to the marketplace as a whole – and that includes current students – to what would more closely resemble what it truly costs to go to Jewell.

“So, that’s to establish [the] long-term viability of the College, to make sure that we are being authentic in what we’re asking students to pay…,” Blair continued. “What we came to see is that this region does not respond well to elite-level price points for the sake of creating an elite-level perception. What the region responds to is elite-level outcomes, which Jewell has and isn’t changing.”

Blair explained that the College significantly increased the cost of tuition in the mid-2000s in order to create a perception of prestige through price. The goal of this change was to increase interest in Jewell as a prestigious college because its sticker price would be competitive with other national private liberal arts colleges. This increase in price corresponds to the beginning of a steady decrease in enrollment.

“The biggest thing that coordinated with our negative trend in enrollment was the decision by the College in the mid-2000s to move to a higher price point… [Around 1996 to 2000], we were at a more competitive price point with other private colleges in this region… In 2006 – right before the recession in 2008 – the College made the decision to elevate this price point with the intent of elevating a perception of prestige, [with] the intent to become a national liberal arts brand. There were ways that could have been executed differently, but ultimately, it just doesn’t position any kind of organization well in this middle-of-the-country market. [The market] doesn’t respond to prestige through price like you see in other geographies,” Blair said.

Several students, upon receiving their letters alerting them to this change, contacted Cardinal Services and the office of financial aid to ask about the reductions to their scholarships, worried that their cost of attendance would increase significantly.

However, even if students saw some of their scholarships reduced significantly or eliminated completely, their total cost of attending has actually been reduced a few hundred dollars, as Blair explained.

“[O]ne could term that as a reduction of the scholarship, but from a value standpoint, it’s the exact same as it was. In fact, for many students it was bettered slightly by three to five hundred dollars because of that change to room and board,” Blair said.

“Not every aid category could be adjusted the same way, and so subsequently some students are seeing three unique scholarships go to two or one or, because it was pretty nominal, go to none because it was reduced past the point of what the scholarship provided against the old price… I do understand they may be perceiving it as if they lost some sort of recognition, in fact, they haven’t,” Blair continued.

Daniel Holt, associate vice president for institutional strategy, led the effort of applying the new tuition model to students so that they would see either no change in total price of attendance or a reduction of a few hundred dollars. Holt sorted through each student’s financial aid package individually and adjusted their scholarships on a student-by-student basis.

The scholarship model will be completely overhauled, and new standardized scholarships and aid programs will be instituted for incoming students in 2021. Current students will continue to pay their current rates and will not receive the new standardized scholarships. 

The College made the changes in order to change the perception of Jewell’s affordability. To financially compensate for the changes and reduced payments for several students, the College will need to recruit an additional 23 students.

One of the programs most impacted by the reduced total scholarship amounts is the Oxbridge Honors Program. The scholarship was previously $26,000 per year, and that amount was given as a Journey Grant for study abroad during the junior year. The scholarship is now $9,250 per year at Jewell. Blair confirmed that students will still receive proportional financial aid during the junior year abroad – so the dollar amount of the scholarship will be significantly increased during that year. Additional scholarships will be made available to a select number in the program to provide full tuition and room and board. 

While students generally understand the changes in tuition, several expressed concerns with the ways the decisions were made. The initial news about the changes either left students assuming their education would cost significantly less – with the news of reduced tuition – or significantly more – with the news of reduced scholarships. 

The primary student complaints regarded the methods of communicating the changes in tuition and scholarships. Trent Brink, sophomore business administration major and member of the football team, offered his perspective on the announcement.

“My Monday brunch in the Cage was soon interrupted with a swarm of panicked students ripping their mailboxes open to discover a rather confusing letter from the school,” said Brink. “I decided to join in on the frenzy and see what the deal was. When you open the letter and see the nearly half drop in tuition, it’s super exciting. But myself along with everyone else – athlete or not – found their scholarships reduced by 20 to 30 percent.”

“While I understand that we end up paying the same or, for some, even a few hundred less, and that it’s designed to bring more students to campus, I feel like the communication could’ve been stronger here,” Brink continued. “A preemptive email would’ve been nice. It’s not like everyone checks their mailbox, so I think a lot of the panic was because of that. It seems that the [confusion] has died down. But [amidst] the coronavirus, added confusion is the last thing any Cardinals need.”

Isabel Warden, sophomore public relations major, described her reaction to learning of the changes. 

“I had the notion that since tuition was going down, I would have to pay less since my faculty scholarship stayed the same. However, that was not the case. I still had a theatre scholarship, but my Jewell access grant was cut in half and my Faculty Scholarship went down to zero. It just makes me feel like I worked hard on my academics for no reward. I mean, obviously, college is a great reward, but it’s expensive,” Warden said. 

Olga Morales, sophomore public relations and theater major, expressed a similar sentiment. 

“I do believe [Jewell] tried to be better, as in more affordable tuition to prospective students, but I do believe they should’ve asked current students’ inputs of [making changes to tuition] as well. Mainly because some of [the current students’] scholarships were reduced by a lot (for example, my theatre scholarship went from $22,000 to $5000), and others who had certain scholarships no longer have them due to the tuition cut,” Morales said.

“Although they stated it was ‘proportional’ I don’t really believe it was because it did [affect] a lot of students being able to afford college especially those paying out of pocket,” Morales continued. “Especially for some who now [need] to pay more the next academic year than this current year. Hopefully they’re open-minded over helping current students to fix their financial aid due to budget cuts.”

Morales’ perspective is representative of many students whose initial reaction to the news was stress about potentially no longer being able to afford Jewell. This miscommunication was a point of criticism about the announcement of the changes. 

Jewell alumnus JD Daniel, ‘19, reflected on his experience with the College’s communication process, and remarked that he thinks further transparency is needed.

“The reaction from my fellow alumni seemed to be that they felt it was unfair to them and they were shocked and indignant. I think this reaction defeats the purpose of positive change, and there’s no way Jewell can issue back pay to alumni while also having the funds to keep tuition reduced for the future… I’m inclined to view this as a positive change. However, I’m still unclear on what finances are actually going to look like for students going forward,” Daniel said.

Every student should have the same, or a lesser, total cost for the 2021-2022 school year, according to Blair. If a student thinks their total cost is increasing, they should contact the financial aid office, as any increase in cost is the result of a mistake in calculating individual scholarships and aid. 

Blair expressed his understanding that students, and others in the community, may disagree with the process but emphasized his commitment to the College’s handling of the situation. While Blair understands students would want input in the decisions, he explained that collaborating extensively with students could have led to rumors of changes, misinformation and stress. The College emphasized their desire to work out concerns through one-on-one meetings to make sure individuals are clear on their own positions.

The tuition changes are ultimately framed in the larger discussion of Jewell embracing radical inclusivity.

“[Radical inclusivity is] the greater story. What you’ll see in terms of the messaging is that we’re not going to be posting firesale billboards all over Kansas City that we’ve reduced [tuition] 45 percent. Our message is ‘Opportunity Without Barriers’ because it’s around the greater sense of becoming a more accessible and equitable institution,” Blair said.

“That, [becoming a more accessible and equitable institution], starts with authenticity with the price point. That starts with removing barriers like a $300 enrollment deposit, [which] we began taking that away last year. And, it’s only going to be $100 going forward because we were seeing that as a barrier,” Blair continued. “It’s moving to holistic admissions and not putting so much weight on the standardized test. Instead, [the standardized test is] one way a student can demonstrate [qualification] but there are other primary ways by presenting their citizenship, their co-curricular engagement, through their writing sample, as well as in their GPA – which has shown, statistically, to be a better indicator of long-term academic success and work ethic over the standardized test, especially for students who may be middle-tier on standardized tests.”

Blair noted that plans for this reduction in tuition have been in development for approximately two years. Jewell’s enrollment and marketing team did extensive research into colleges and universities that rolled out similar plans – including Kansas City area institutions like Avila University – and specifically focused on elements that made the reduction either successful or unsuccessful.

“Unsuccessful cases are institutions who reduced that and then had to continue to reduce further because they weren’t positioned well from an outcome standpoint – they didn’t have that strong of a product from a college experience perspective,” Blair said. “They didn’t do enough research on where they needed to be priced within the market, and subsequently, it just created concern and they got back into a not as high of tuition but still a high discount perspective.”

Given that these plans have been in development even prior to Blair stepping into his role in May of 2019, COVID-19 was not a factor in the decision to reduce tuition.

“[I]t was not a response to COVID. It was something that was planned and would be happening to us regardless of COVID… Our enrollment was up in spite of COVID. We did some really good things… We want more students to become critical thinkers because we believe it’s going to benefit the Kansas City region and the globe as a whole to produce more Jewell graduates.”

Students who have questions about the effect of the tuition reduction on their financial aid package can schedule a virtual meeting with the office of financial aid at https://calendly.com/williamjewell-finaid.