Members of the Ohio University Board of Trustees voted unanimously Friday to terminate and revoke Yusuf Kalyango’s tenure after he was found to have sexually harassed a student by an Office of Equity and Civil Rights Compliance investigation.
The decision was made in an hours-long executive session, which was followed by committee meetings where the Board passed a number of resolutions and ongoing projects were discussed.
Audit and Risk Management Committee
The Board met to discuss the audit for the current and next school year.
The audits from the previous school year were brought out to show the completion and continuation of certain projects. The audits were compared to show how they are concurrently progressing.
For the Fiscal Year 2021 Audit Plans, two of those plans have been completed: Treasury Management and NCAA Agreed Upon Procedures. The remaining six audits are currently in progress. Those audits consist of regional campuses, institutional research and an audit about athletic compliance with a focus on equipment and apparel, Chief Audit Executive Marion Candrea said.
The Southern Regional Campus audit is 90% complete, and the estimated completion is on April 15. The other regional campus audits are 75% complete and are estimated to be completed in May. The last two audits are only 20% complete and are estimated to be finished in July of this year, Candrea said.
Baker Tilly, the company contracted to work from August 2014 to June 30, 2020, after a one-year extension, has two final projects that are currently in progress. That company has completed 10 projects including a risk analysis, risk assessment, training and nine audits. Another company, CBIZ, was also contracted for one project that was completed in March 2016, Candrea said.
The previous contract is expiring so the Internal Audit worked with Design and Construction to develop a new Request for Proposal, or RFP, for the continuation of construction audit services. The RFP proposes a period of agreement initially of two years with the option of three one-year term renewals. This RFP closed on March 30 and the board will begin reviewing proposals in a few weeks, Candrea said.
The external audit update began with wrapping up last year’s audit. All of the reports from the previous fiscal year have been completed which include the audit opinions, the NCAA opinions and the WOUB financial statement, Christine Torres, the signing engagement partner, said.
There were not any corrected or uncorrected misstatements in the audits for the last fiscal year. Something that would be included in the corrected misstatements would be if the testing was getting checked and an error in the financial statements was found that should have been recorded and was missed by management. An uncorrected misstatement could be something that comes in after the financial statements are prepared and it’s more work to update those statements so management decided to not update those transactions, Torres said.
The scope of services for this year has not changed, Torres said. The independent auditor’s report will include Ohio University, Ohio University Foundation, Russ Research Center LLC, WOUB and the Inn at Athens Inc., Torres said.
Specific areas of audit emphasis are internal controls over financial cycles, tuition and grant revenue, fair values of investments and disclosures, capital assets, debt and pension and OPEB liabilities and related deferred inflows and outflows, Torres said.
Academic and Student Success Committee
After having been delayed in executive session, the Board Academics and Student Success committee voted to send eight consent resolutions to the main Board.
The resolutions passed were the following:
- Consent Emeriti
- Consent New Program - College of Communications Virtual Reality and Game Development
- Consent Program name change - College of Business Management and Strategic Leadership
- Consent Program name change - College of Business Bachelor of Science and Applied management
- Consent Program Suspension - Health Sciences and Wellness Long Term Care Administration
- Consent Program Suspension - Health Sciences and Wellness Occupational Hygiene and Safety
- Consent Program Review - Health Sciences and Wellness Applied Health Sciences and Wellness
- Consent Kennedy Museum of Art
Resources, Facilities and Affordability Committee
The Resources, Facilities and Affordability committee discussed new projects, budget amendments to ongoing projects and fee adjustments during its meeting.
Steve Wood, chief facilities officer, discussed new facilities and projects, such as the demolition of the Weld House and the connected catwalks.
“The area will be returned to green space for student use,” Wood said.
In addition, the budget for Clippinger Laboratories was increased significantly.
The renovation, categorized into phase 2 and phase 3, is one of the ongoing projects approved for budget adjustments. Following the completion of the new chemistry building, the university will begin construction of Clippinger’s east portion for phase 2. Phase 3 will upgrade the west portion and is currently in the early stages of design.
An additional $4.986 million for phase 2, to a total of $38.6 million for phase 2, and $5.66 million for phase 3, to a total of $34.3 million for phase 3, were approved. Coupled with an initially low estimation of project costs, higher costs in mechanical work and materials in the construction market necessitated this request for an increase in budget.
“We also took a look forward because we wanted to see, well maybe we should hold off on bidding or awarding any projects to see what the market is looking forward, and really what we found is that we need, at least in the near term, year, year plus, a leveling of current prices,” Wood said.
If the renovated facility undergoes possible space changes and programmatic reviews, such changes might lead to another budget adjustment, Wood said.
Adjustments to the budgets of two ongoing projects in Alden Library were also discussed. The revised $850,000 chilled water tie-in project had a surplus of $400,000, which will now be directed toward the revised $1.4 million replacement of Air Handlers 3 and 4 in the library.
John Day, associate provost for academic budget and planning, and Jenny Hall-Jones, interim vice president for student affairs and dean of students, introduced new fees.
Day spoke of four existing graduate programs that will be adjusting fees and four new programs at the Voinovich school.
Hall-Jones then covered an increase in the student health insurance admin fee and two new rooming options: a super single, which will allow a student to buy out both sides of a double to make it single, and a super double, which will allow two students to buy out a quad to make it a double.
“It’s not an increase to all fees, it’s just allowing us to have those two new room types,” Hall-Jones said.
Governance and Compensation Committee
The Governance and Compensations Committee discussed the results of a five-year compensation market study and biennial equity review.
On August 29, 2011, OU entered a resolution agreement, referred to as COMP 2014, with the Department of Education. That agreement followed a complaint regarding violations of Title IX of the Education Amendment of 1972. The agreement planned to create a consistent job classification system, create market-based pay range structures, develop pay administration guidelines and perform a biennial equity review.
The market study discussed falls under the creation of market-based pay range structures. It is the first comprehensive market review since COMP2014. The study was conducted by Deloitte, who utilized comparative compensation surveys. It suggested re-slotting positions to pay grades that better align with the current market, aging and widening the pay structure and providing approximate cost information.
The results of the study report that approximately 221 jobs will receive new pay grades, where 168 will move up to higher pay grades, including academic services, advancement, information technology and legal and compliance. 53 jobs will move down to lower pays grades, including auxiliaries, records management and student affairs.
Approximately 330 employees will be below the minimum of their new pay grades and will receive a base wage adjustment. The estimated financial impact is approximately $596,000, and there are funds built into the budget to account for this impact.
For the biennial equity review, the committee partnered with Mercer. No overall university-wide systemic pay equity issues were found, but some risk groups were identified as well as some negative outliers. 14 employees fell in this risk area and 36 employees fell into the negative outliers.
“I also thought you might be interested to know what the prior biennial equity review results were. In 2016, the cost to ameliorate the risk was about $444,000 across 62 employees. In 2018, it was $55,000 of cost spread across 44 employees,” Chief Human Resources Officer Colleen Bendl said. “This systemic gap between the group of focus … and the comparison group … is statistic significant at the 5% level … none of the percent pay gaps are statistically significant.”
Main Board Meeting
The Board approved appointments for chair and vice chair for next year’s Board during the Main Board meeting.
Cary Cooper, a civil trial and appellate lawyer, was selected as the chair, and Peggy Viehweger, a retired international business manager, was selected as the vice chair for next year’s board.
The Board passed a resolution in honor of former Board of Trustees chair, Mary Lee Ong, serving from 1996-2005. Ong passed away in August 2019, but the board wanted to recognize her service.
“The Ohio University Board of Trustees recognizes the significant loss to the Ohio University community and a greater world given the passing of Lee Ong,” the certificate states. “Lee Ong was a valued leader and loyal alumna that generously served and supported Ohio University.”
Members leaving after this year were given certificates of appreciation. Justin Kelly, the student trustee, will be graduating this year. Outgoing Chair Dave Scholl was given a certificate for his work in the board over the years.
OU President Duane Nellis also presented an overview of the past year during the presidential report.
The presidential focus is enrollment, brand development, revenue growth and budget reserve utilization, student success, OHIO honors and undergraduate research and fundraising and partnerships, Nellis said.
The Heritage College of Osteopathic Medicine’s Community Health Programs will distribute COVID-19 vaccines in Southeast Ohio via mobile clinics. This is the latest step OU and HCOM have taken to assist with the vaccine delivery, Nellis said.
OU was recognized as one of the top voter-friendly campuses by a non-partisan organization. OU continues to be recognized for one of the top military schools for the 10th year in a row. Additionally, for the second year in a row, OU has been recognized as one of the most transfer-friendly schools in the country, Nellis said.
The Ohio Department of Higher Education awarded OU a Choose First grant worth more than $1 million to provide scholarships to students in STEM fields. The OU Student Enhancement Awards program has provided 21 students with a total of $119,537 in funding for their original research, scholarships and their creative work this spring. The 2021 Bobcathon ended March 21 and raised $43,995 with a total contribution of $500,000 since its founding in 2014, Nellis said.
HCOM gave a presentation on its successes with its evolution into an academic health system. HCOM is expanded onto three campuses, making it the only multi-campus medical school in the state of Ohio. There was $65 million invested for the new medical education in Athens. There were three advanced institutions that were expanded upon: diabetes, ageing and infectious disease, Dr. Kenneth Johnson, chief medical affairs officer, said.
All of these successes in the past year are because of the $105 million gift to support osteopathic medical education, which is the single largest gift in the history of public education in Ohio. The drive for wanting to continue to change despite all of this success is because of the collapse of other businesses with strong models. Hospitals are now becoming super hospitals instead of staying by themselves, Johnson said.
Becoming an academic health system will have many benefits for students, professors and partnerships. Students will walk away with less debt because tuition rates will not increase. Partnerships will be able to receive employers easier and they will also be able to achieve their goals, Johnson said.
Bekah Bostick, Jack Knudson, Colleen McLafferty, Anna Millar, Claire Schiopota, Molly Wilson and Sophia Young contributed to this report.
