The Board of Trustees met Friday to discuss and vote on matters of the audit, new appointees and a new model regarding regional higher education.
Audit and Risk Management Committee
A member of the Ohio University Audit Team CPA of Plante Moran, Robert Shenton, said that 2019 fiscal year audits are completed for NCAA agreed upon procedures, IT general controls, Diversity and Inclusion and Financial Aid.
Additionally, audits for research and the Patton College of Education are in progress, and will be completed June 30.
An audit for the Scripps College of Communication is planned. The responsibilities of the audit team are to report issues within the audits, produce a post-audit letter and produce a special letter for state purposes.
“We are not aware of any significant fraud or any accounting that is abnormal. We will look at items that have a significant amount of error,” Shenton said.
External audits were also produced by the US Department of Veterans Affairs after Ohio University submitted records for approximately 10 students to receive benefits. The US Department of Agriculture, the USDA Animal Care, the US office of Laboratory Animal Welfare and the Associate for Assessment and Accreditation of Laboratory Animal Care, or AALAC, conducted Federal audits about the research and welfare of animals at OU.
The Ohio Department of Higher Education conducted an audit to track financial aid at the university. There was no significant findings in any of those reports.
A Cash Collections update was given by the Cash Collections Committee.
International students sometimes pay tuition in cash but are moving towards making transactions online. Some operations on campus, like Culinary Services and Campus Recreation, collect cash but risk is low for those entities.
The Cash Collection Committee is looking toward moving cash collection points to a central location, like the bursar’s office, and ultimately making online student transactions. The committee is working with groups on campus to identify departments that traditionally collect cash and reroute them to the bursar’s office with special tickets for transactions.
Governance and Compensation Committee
Three new appointments were made during the Governance and Compensation committee meeting.
John Gainor, an Ohio University alumnus, was approved for national trustee appointment. Gainor will serve that position for a three year term. His business background will help him in his duties, Trustee Dave Scholl said.
“I’ve had the opportunity to interact with him on numerous occasions,” OU President Duane Nellis said. “I think he’s a person that’s really committed to this.”
A chair and vice chair of the Board of Trustees was also approved. Those positions are one year in length, beginning on May 14, 2019, and ending May 13, 2020. Board of Trustees Chair Dave Scholl was the only nomination for chair and was approved. Vice Chair of Board of Trustees Janelle Coleman will also serve another term in her current position.
The board also heard from representatives of the Ohio Rural Health Association. The association is a nonprofit startup company that aims to promote rural health information and services in rural areas, such as Southeast Ohio. The association would like OU to become a partner and support them until they can be self-sustainable.
Ohio is one of seven states that doesn’t have a rural health association. The association would help not only people in rural areas where health care is scarce but could benefit OU students.
The association representatives said it has already helped at least a dozen OU students with educational opportunities. The association hopes to help students with internships, networking and research opportunities.
The trustees will revisit the association at their next meeting. Trustees were interested in the program and how it could partner with OU but wanted more information.
“You’ve made a really strong argument,” Scholl said.
Main Board Meeting
Board of Trustees voted on and discussed Regional Higher Education recommendations and an extension of the Bachelor of Science in Nursing program to the Eastern Campus.
Board members approved a series of recommendations made by the Regional Higher Education Study Committee, including recommendations calling for restructuring regional campus administrative and academic operations to create a required focus on a One Ohio University system, according to a university media release.
“Ohio University’s regional campuses provide valuable educational and economic benefits to the communities in which they are located,” Scholl said in a media release. “As such, there is a great sense of urgency for University leadership to develop a sustainable model that will ensure our Regional campuses can continue to serve their respective communities as well as the University as a whole.“
The next step in the process is to create an implementation team.
“I have charged Executive Vice President and Provost, Dr. Chaden Djalali, with the creation of an implementation team to be comprised of academic leadership from across all of our campuses, as well as representatives from the University’s shared governance structure,” Nellis said in a media release.
The Board of Trustees also voted to extend the Bachelor of Science in Nursing program to the Eastern Campus as a satellite program of the degree offered in Athens, pending approval by the Ohio Board of Nursing.
Additionally, the board reviewed a proposal to de-consolidate the School of Dance, Film and Theater in the College of Fine Arts.
There will be no change to any current degrees, minors or certificates offered through the existing school. The move will restore school identities, improving moral. They are also expected to be more desirable to future students, according to a university media release.
In other business, the Board of Trustees and administrators discussed OU’s Esports program and an update on the engagement ecosystem.
Abby Miller, Paige Miller and Sarah Penix contributed to this report.
