The Arizona Board of Regents met at the UA last week to discuss a variety of issues pertinent to the three state institutions, from the UA presidential search to fiscal year 2007 budget projections.
The UA Presidential Search Committee headed by regent
Regent Fred Boice of Tucson will be chairing a committee with the sole purpose of seeking out, interviewing and eventually appointing an individual who will replace President Peter Likins come the 2006-2007 academic year. Members of the committee, still in its developing stages, have been selected and Academic Search Consultation Services, a Washington D.C. company dedicated to searching out qualified academic executives has been retained to aide in finding a suitable replacement.
As a member of the search committee, ASUA President Cade Bernsen said he felt honored to have been selected to take part in such an important process and offered his thanks to Regent Boice. For more details on both committee members and consultants, log onto http://www.abor.asu.edu/special_editions/UA%20Search/ua_search.html
Preliminary fiscal year 2007 State Operating Budget
The Regents also evaluated the 2007 preliminary budgets from all three universities. The total state budget being requested by the UA is in excess of $51.6 million, which is about a $700,000 decrease from last year.
Regent President Christina Palacios said her apprehension to approve the budget stemmed from the fact that it was a projected budget based upon this fiscal year's model due to any irregularity this has the potential to cause.
Regent President Christina Palacios said she was concerned that the budget is modeled on information from the current fiscal year.
In response, ASU president Michael Crow said he believed next year's enrollment would meet or exceed this year's.
UA Men's Tennis
The board was asked to approve a multiple-year employment contract for the head UA men's tennis coach, Tad Berkowitz. The new period of the contract will run from Sept. 1 until June 30, 2008. Berkowitz's current contract was for a one-year appointment scheduled to expire on June 30, 2006.
Substantial interest OK'd by board of regents
The board was asked to grant approval for Mark Riley, an associate professor of agricultural and biosystems engineering, to establish and maintain a substantial equity interest in RediRipe, LLC., while remaining an employee of the UA.
Amendment to an existing lease ratified by board
The UA requested board ratification to extend the lease on the Sky View Apartments (located at 1050 E. Eighth St.) for an additional two years in order to supplement existing on-campus undergraduate housing. This facility currently houses 244 undergraduate students. This amendment to the existing lease was approved by the board and was extended through June of 2008.
ABOR policy revisions
The board was asked to approve multiple changes to ABOR policy in accordance with the Focused Governance policy review including the following:
2-206.B - Academic Credit for Foreign Study: deletes the requirement for recording individual courses from other institutions on the transcript.
Discussion on this policy concluded that not only has the policy never been fully implemented, but also the current process adequately states both credits and the country where they were received.
2-302 - Descriptions and Definitions of Academic Units: removes the timeframe for reviewing academic units and delegates the frequency to the universities.
Key points included how the university makes constant assessments of their organizational units but hardly ever makes changes as a result of mandatory review.
4-202.D - Tuition and Fees for Special Sessions: change proposed to extend the scope of ABOR tuition and fee levels from summer to winter session and other special sessions.
Because summer sessions and inter-sessions (pre-session and winter session) are the same type and serve the same purpose, the policy stated it is only fair they share a similar fee structure. For example, resident and non-resident status can be ignored for summer session so the same should apply to inter-sessions.
4-301 - Tuition Waivers: removes policy requiring community service for nonresident students who receive nonresident tuition waivers.
Deletion of this policy will make requirements the same for both resident and non-resident tuition waiver students. The board stated many community service and volunteer opportunities exist on all campuses and elimination of this policy would make Arizona universities more competitive to highly qualified non-resident students.
According to Joel Sideman, Arizona Board of Regents executive director, these polices were carefully reviewed by the Regents and universities and it was determined that changes to these policies were necessary in order for the university system to function in a more efficient manner.
The next ABOR meeting is scheduled for Sept. 29 and 30 at NAU.