What does a Tuition Classification Officer do?听
Basically a Tuition Classification Officer decides which students are Colorado residents and therefore get the benefit of in-state tuition. Different categories of students have different residency requirements and these requirements determine who needs to fill out a residency petition. If the Admissions Office has difficulty determining a student鈥檚 residency then they send it to us. We research it and then our department notifies the student if they need to fill out a petition. We are also responsible for reviewing these petitions. When we are taking in petitions for fall term it is a lot busier than during spring. In fall we take in about 1,500 petitions and in spring we take in about 200 petitions.
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What is your favorite part of being a Tuition Classification Officer and why?
It is a really good feeling to help someone get in-state tuition! Unfortunately, it is also a really bad feeling when they don鈥檛 get it. I am happy that I can help people who may have become frustrated, or who didn鈥檛 think they had a way to receive residency, navigate their way through the system. When students don鈥檛 get residency I have to remind myself that we are in the business of explaining how the law works and students simply have to obey the law in order to be accepted for in-state tuition.
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I also really enjoy staying up to date on the changes to laws and regulations that affect in-state tuition. I know some people might think this sounds boring, but I like reading about the laws and studying the regulations in-depth. A recent example of new legislation was the Asset Bill that was passed in 2013. After it was passed we had to make sure we understood exactly what it meant to our students and then we had to figure out how to implement it. You have to be creative and cooperative with other campuses as well in implementing new legislation and this always keeps us on our toes.
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What do you wish other people knew about your job?
We look at each case individually. Each case must stand alone; we don鈥檛 make blanket rules. A student might think, 鈥淢y roommate got in-state tuition so I should too.鈥� But there is a lot more to residency than just living in the state. For example, there are requirements for driver鈥檚 license, vehicle registration, state taxes and, depending on age, financial emancipation.听
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What is the best thing to happen to you since you started working at CU-麻豆影院?
I was voted Employee of the Year by the Office of the Registrar at our department employee recognition awards ceremony in December of 2012. I was honored that my peers thought so highly of me.听
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Tell me about some of the people you have met while working at CU-麻豆影院?
It may sound funny, but I love all the people I ride the bus with. I look forward to meeting them at the bus stop and on the bus. I stand out because I ride the lift so people know me and I meet lots of people that way. I am also very outgoing and I don鈥檛 hesitate to introduce myself. I also enjoy working with my peers in the Office of the Registrar and Regulatory Compliance, we have a great team.
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What might someone be surprised to know about you?
Well, I am a walking miracle! I will tell you my story. In December of 1998 I suddenly became very ill. I had a horrible headache for two days and I started throwing up. My mom drove me to Lutheran hospital and I started having classic stroke symptoms. I couldn鈥檛 feel my left side. The doctors could see the stroke symptoms, so they ran several tests on me but they but could not see any clotting or bleeding in my arteries, so they thought I might have spinal meningitis. They called in a specialist who put dye in my blood and ran another brain scan. That is when they saw the clot in my sagittal sinus vein (the main vein in the brain). The doctors didn鈥檛 know what to do so they put me in a drug-induced coma to rest my brain. They told my family to hope for the best, but to make preparations for my death. This was unacceptable to my family.听
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My brother was assistant scoutmaster at our church at the time this happened to me and his friend, the scoutmaster, was a pharmaceutical salesman. It just so happened his friend attended a conference during the time I was in a coma and he knew all about my situation. At the conference one of the speakers talked about getting rid of blood clots in veins and he recommended Dr. David Kumpe, who was an Interventional Radiologist at University hospital.听
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The scoutmaster immediately told my brother about this conference talk and my brother contacted Dr. Kumpe to see if he would look at my brain scans. Everything worked out just right so my brother could get my scans released and show them to Dr. Kumpe. He looked at all my scans and saw that I had a blood clot in my sagittal sinus vein so large that it was causing other veins to bleed. The dilemma was that if he stopped the clot it would encourage these bleeds, and if he stopped the bleeds it would make the clot worse. Needless to say it was a very bad situation.听
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My brother told me that Dr. Kumpe told my family I had a 1/2 of a 1% chance of surviving the brain surgery he needed to perform to try and save my life. If I survived the surgery, he gave me less than 1/2 of a 1% chance of surviving the 24 hours following surgery. If I survived those 24 hours, and managed to somehow live against all odds, he gave me an 80% to 90% chance of being severely mentally impaired from the brain damage I incurred, and I would have to live the rest of my life in a nursing home.听
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My family said if there was any chance at all at life it was worth it and to do the procedure. At this point I had been in the hospital for five days. I was transferred from Lutheran Hospital to University Hospital. The doctor ran a catheter from my leg to my brain and dripped urokinase to the clot. He dripped it every 7 minutes for 12 hours until he ran out of medicine. The clot had been broken up and the bleed had been stopped, but I didn鈥檛 wake up. He then had to contact other hospitals across the country to see if they could give him more urokinase to continue to treat me. Hospitals from Utah, Illinois, and some on the east coast, donated their urokinase to me (which incidentally, had been discontinued by the FDA, so they would not be getting more). Dr. Kumpe repeated the procedure for another 12 hours and then a few days later I came out of the coma.听
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It turns out I have a genetic blood disorder called Factor Five Leiden. It is the most common of the clotting blood disorders and it causes you to get blood clots in your veins, but doctors are trained to look at arteries for clots. I didn鈥檛 know I had this disorder, so they didn鈥檛 look at my veins.
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After I woke up, I stayed three more weeks at University Hospital and then I was very lucky to be sent to Craig Hospital to their brain injury rehab floor. For nine months I had to learn how to do everything all over again; eat, dress myself, walk, drive鈥� everything. I also had some permanent physical effects from the clot. I lost some fine motor skills in my left hand and so these fingers are slightly curved. Also, my left leg turns in a little so I have some balance issues.听
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Dr. Kumpe has used my brain scans in his lectures around the world and he finishes his presentation with a picture of him, me and my husband at my wedding, which was never supposed to happen!
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The reason I am happy to share my story with people is because it helps to demystify disabilities or physical handicaps. It is not always something you did that caused you to be that way, sometimes it is just something that happened to you.听
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What is your motto or personal mantra?
I think mine would be 鈥淣ever give up and give life a chance.鈥�
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I used to be a real go-getter, kind of like, this is what I want in life and I鈥檓 going to push my way to the top, you know, that kind of thing. I am still a go-getter I am just more content with whatever life brings me now and I know life happens and you have to roll with the punches. There are things out of your control that you have to learn how to deal with. I am also more patient with people because of this experience. I have learned to deal with people as they are, not how I wish they were or how I think they should be. I definitely look at other people with a lot more tolerance and patience.
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I鈥檓 proudest of鈥μ�
Overcoming and dealing with my stroke, I鈥檓 a stroke survivor. My rehab therapist told me it would be like climbing Mount Everest to recover鈥� and it was. It is my best and proudest accomplishment!听
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