Ohio University’s top decision makers, the Board of Trustees, convene for their first meeting of 2016 in Walter Hall today. The Post live blogs the discussion.
Ohio University’s top decision makers, the Board of Trustees, convene for their first meeting of 2016 in Walter Hall today.
The meeting, which is split it up into five committees, includes presentations from university officials on topics such as OU’s budget, student courses and the layout of the Athens campus.
Post reporters are at each committee to get the latest on possible changes to OU and are tweeting with the hashtag #OUBoT to keep you updated.
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See the latest updates from each committee below:
Joint Committee Meeting (Academic/Resources): OHIO Guarantee tuition increases for class of 2020; Comprehensive Master Plan updates
Resources Committee: Resolution for tuition increases; consent agenda for President Street Academic Center and other possible construction projects; university financial updates
Academics Committee: Intercollegiate athletics updates; enrollment update; consent agenda items for new university programs
Governance Committee: Discussion of future meeting dates and a student trustee retreat
Audit Committee: External audit update
Joint Committee Meeting (Academic/Resources)
During the Joint Academics and Resources meeting, trustees discussed a proposed 1.7 percent increase in tuition for the class of 2020, which translates to $196 per student. Students in the current freshman class, as part of Ohio University's guaranteed tuition program — dubbed the OHIO Guarantee — will not see tuition increases next year and neither will continuing students.
The proposal was included in a presentation on OU’s budget priorities given by Executive Vice President and Provost Pam Benoit and Vice President for Finance and Administration Stephen Golding.
“For next fiscal year, the only students who will see an increase in their cost will be the second cohort of the OHIO Guarantee. ... (It will be) capped at (the) current rate for everyone else,” Golding said.
The board will vote on the tuition increase among other rate increases at its meeting Friday. The increases include a $500 surcharge for out-of-state students in the class of 2020, a charge which has not been used since 2008, according to Golding.
“In some respects, this will be an interesting test to see if the $500 will have a negative effect on our non-resident students,” Golding said.
The costs of room and board for next year's incoming class are also set to increase, with 3.5 and 2 percent increases, respectively.
Also included in the presentation on budget priorities was information about employee compensation for the 2017 fiscal year.
Trustees also heard a presentation on OU’s Campus Master Plan from Shawna Bolin, director of University Planning and Space Management, and Kevin Petersen, a principal for the architectural firm Ayers Saint Gross, which the university worked with to create the plan.
Bolin and Petersen presented a draft of the Master Plan, which is OU’s plan for the next 10 years, to receive feedback from the board. The final plan will be up for a vote at the board’s next meeting in March.
The plan includes various potential changes and additions to OU’s campus, such as adding facilities to West Union Street, renovating Clippinger Laboratories and relocating the Heritage College of Osteopathic Medicine.
Trustees also discussed how the future of Park Place would fit into the Campus Master Plan. The plan aims to make the Park Place “corridor” more pedestrian-friendly and possibly limit vehicle access.
Following last year’s decision for OU President Roderick McDavis to move from the president’s residence at 29 Park Place, trustees briefly discussed the future of presidential housing. Both McDavis and his wife have lived at an off-campus residence, 31 Coventry Lane, since March 2015. The university has paid $4,318 per month in rental fees for the new property.
The university hasn’t yet decided where OU’s permanent presidential residence should be, and Board of Trustees Chair Sandra Anderson said the board needs to decide what to do next.
“Finding that house and setting up for where that house should be is a clear next step,” Petersen said.
Resources Committee:
A sinkhole formed in September prompted Ohio University administrators to ask the Board of Trustees for another $1 million.
Joseph Lalley, senior associate vice president of technology and administrative services, presented a need to stabilize the ground under the main electrical supply to the OU Athens campus after a sinkhole appeared on Sept. 4.
“This is not an emergency, but it is something we need to attend to,” Lalley said.
If approved, OU will close West Green Drive between Factory Street and the Central Food Facility in order to stabilize the ground and prepare to install a new transformer.
Right now, Lalley said the project will need $1 million, but OU administrators will request between $8 and $10 million to purchase a new transformer and move the remaining transformer to stable ground.
In addition to discussing the installation of new windows in the buildings on College Green and building a fitness center at OU’s Lancaster campus, the board will vote on construction projects impacting two Athens Campus colleges.
Both the deans of the College of Business and the College of Health Science and Professions spoke to the board about their desire to improve classroom and research spaces.
Hugh Sherman, dean of the College of Business, requested a new classroom building to be constructed where the President Street Academic Center currently stands.
“The traditional classrooms are just not working for us,” Sherman said. “We’re trying to move to a different way of teaching our students.”
The College of Business uses Copeland Hall and the Computer Services Center for its classes, but Sherman said he hopes to see new classroom spaces that would work better for the cluster integrated program classes that business students take in their sophomore years.
College of Health Science and Professions Dean Randy Leite requested $10.45 million to expand classroom, lab and athletic training spaces in Grover Center, which was last renovated in 2001.
Tomorrow, Trustees will additionally vote on tuition, dining, and room and board fees for students enrolling at OU next academic year.
As the resolution stands, next year’s freshmen will be paying $174 more for instate tuition than the students who started at OU this year.
Senior Associate Vice President for Finance and Administration Deborah Shaffer also presented OU’s budget as it stands currently. Gifts to the university are currently lower than planned following the end of the 10-year Promise Lives fundraising campaign. In addition, undergraduate financial aid costs more than expected after the university did not plan appropriately for the second year of increasing the amount of financial aid it distributes, Shaffer said.
Profits from the university’s sales came out higher than expected, Shaffer said.
Academics Committee
The Board of Trustees Academics Committee consulted on a multitude of topics, including university enrollment, athletics and accreditation, in addition to a proposal that would create a wide-based honors program open to all Ohio University students.
Representatives from the College of Fine Arts and the Honors Tutorial College presented their plan for a university-wide honors program, separate from HTC, that would open the door for students, including those who transfer and relocate, to partake in a special course of study.
According to the report, 7 percent of students on a national basis are involved in a wide-based academic honors program. On OU campuses, however, that number is only 2 percent. Beginning next year, 50-75 students will be introduced into the program as a “pilot cohort," which will eventually increase to 800-1,000 students when the program is fully phased-in.
“We aim to recruit even more highly engaged students than we already do,” Cary Frith, Assistant Dean of HTC, said. “If anything, it’s going to give us a group of students who are serious about maximizing their campus experience.”
The Board then turned its attention to enrollment, citing 2015 as the fourth consecutive year of increased enrollment in the freshman class, and the ninth for increased enrollment overall. Board member N. Victor Goodman expressed concern that an increase in enrollment could have a negative impact, not only on OU, but on other regional universities.
“Someone’s going to wake up someday and say … it’s not right, because we have some universities that are marvelous institutions, but no one’s going there, but that’s because Ohio University and Miami are getting more than their fair share,” Goodman said.
Dennis Irwin, dean of the Russ College of Engineering and Technology, presented on the college’s enrollment and retention rates.
He said the engineering college has more than 1,800 students enrolled this academic year. He added that first-year retention rates are around 80 percent, and four-year retention rates have increased from 27 percent to 37 percent.
“People appreciate what we do,” Irwin said. “They find that we do it with quality.”
In addition, Jenny Polak, assistant director of NCAA Eligibility and SA Success, presented on student athletes and their academics.
She said OU’s student athletes study 91 different majors and average a 3.129 GPA.
It was also announced that the university passed its Academic Quality Improvement program accreditation, performed Nov. 2-4, 2015.
Governance Committee:
Three items were on the agenda for the governance committee: selection of 2016 meeting dates, selection of a location for the board's 2016 retreat and discussion about a reunion event for student trustees.
The 2016 meeting dates were not finalized, and the Board members will continue to discuss dates for their October meeting.
Tentatively, the meeting dates are scheduled for Oct. 20 and 21, but those dates are not set in stone as the trustees will continue to discuss the matter further.
The trustees' retreat was held at OU's Dublin Campus last year, and the trustees agreed that it was a nice location.
“I thought Dublin was fantastic last year,” Board of Trustees Vice Chair David Wolfort said.
Trustee Janelle Smith said she enjoys having meetings at OU's campuses.
Last year, the trustees invited former student trustees back to campus, and after some discussion on the subject, the trustees decided to try to invite them back again in March.
“I really enjoyed it,” Sharmaine Wilcox, student trustee, said. “It was a really good learning experience."
Audit Committee:
In a meeting lasting roughly a half hour, Ohio University’s Chief Audit Executive Jeff Davis detailed the state of internal audits regarding NCAA procedures, construction contractors and the Russ College of Engineering.
Davis said his team spent 400 to 450 hours over 12 weeks internally auditing the past year and speculated that the amount of time would decrease to around 300 hours next year.
“Going forward, we’ll have it laid out better, and we’re going to work with athletics to get what we need as soon as we need it,” Davis said.
Most of the meeting dealt with the reviewal of NCAA procedures and compliance, including monitoring revenue assigned to “satellite football camps” that coaches hold outside of the university, and financial aid to student athletes.
During the end of the discussion, Trustee Dave Scholl asked about the computer software used by the athletic department. Davis said the department used a program called JumpForward, which is used to unify data specifically for athletic departments onto a single platform.
The committee also briefly spoke about the current state of construction contracts for McCracken Hall and Jefferson Hall. However, board members did not implement any new action regarding the buildings' renovations.
“We’ve got a lot to get done in the next five months,” Davis said. “[Auditing] is a great way to get quality feedback. I think we’re really going to get a quality review.”
An assessment by an external auditor will be released in the spring, Scholl said.
—Kaitlin Coward, Alex Meyer, Danielle Keeton-Olsen, Julia Fair, Lauren Fisher, Nora Jaara, Megan Henry, Luke Furman and Maddie Peck contributed to this report.
