OU’s governing body met in Walter Hall for most of the dayThursday to review its mission, the university’s strategic goals and the institution’s plans for the future.
Joint Committee Meeting: Academics and Resources Committees
The joint committee, which Board Chair Sandra Anderson later referred to as “The Committee of the Whole,” heard updates on the university’s six-year Capital Improvement Plan, guaranteed tuition and $100 million investment plan.
Guaranteed tuition, which trustees approved at their June meeting, will now be offered to out-of-state students when it’s rolled out next fall, said Executive Vice President and Provost Pam Benoit.
Guaranteed tuition would offer a flat rate to incoming students over a period of four years.
The Capital Improvement Plan was discussed further during the separate Resources Committee meeting.
Lunch with a side of Reaccreditation
Trustees heard from Mike Williford, vice provost for institutional accreditation, and Benoit over soup and salad about how the university’s reaccreditation process is progressing.
OU will be evaluated for re-accreditation during the 2014-15 academic year.
The university has until Friday to submit a systems portfolio review — a 100 page document answering 137 questions regarding OU’s operations.
“What they are looking for is evidence that we meet the criteria and they will look everywhere and anywhere to find that,” Williford said.
Academics Committee
Enrollment and retention rates highlighted the meeting of OU’s Academics Committee, as well as the opening of the Heritage College of Osteopathic Medicine’s Dublin and Cleveland campuses, which are set to open in 2014 and 2015, respectively.
Craig Cornell, vice provost for Enrollment Management, also brought attention to the fact OU has its biggest freshman class ever, at 4,249 students.
“We have the largest growth of students in the state of Ohio,” said Craig Cornell, vice provost for enrollment management.
There was a 78.7 percent retention rate for freshman students from Fall to Spring Semesters in 2012-13, according to a Board presentation.
Resources Committee
Ryan Lombardi, vice president for Student Affairs, and Harry Wyatt, associate vice president for Facilities, revealed details on the first phase of OU’s Capital Improvement Plan, lasting six years.
The plan includes OU’s Housing Development Plan, which will cost $110 million — $100 million from debt — and create four new residence halls.
Before the committee entered an executive session, Bryan Benchoff, vice president for University Advancement, presented the progress of the Promise Lives Campaign by highlighting OU’s generation of $431.2 million in gifts as of Thursday morning.
“We have some good things in the making,” Benchoff said.
Governance and Audit Committees
Anderson and Trustee David Wolfort discussed moving the body’s future meetings into more public and accessible locations at the Board’s governance meeting.
“When I have board meetings periodically with the corporation that I run, I will have the customers and/or vendors host the board,” Wolfort said. “It gets the board into a different venue and gets them to take a look at things.”
No formal action to change the Board’s meeting location was taken at the meeting.
During the Audit Committee, an external audit of the university showed OU has $1.3 billion in assets, with about half of that invested in capital assets, according to Plante Moran, an audit, accounting, tax and business firm that prepared the report.
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