In attendance: John Ramil, Board Chair; Paul Colee, John Frost, Carole Philipson, and Kelly Underhill, Members; USF President Judy Genshaft, and Preston Mercer, USF Lakeland Vice President/CEO and Board Corporate Secretary.

Call to Order and Introductions

John Ramil called the meeting to order and introduced and welcomed the new Lakeland Campus Board member Paul Colee, a USF graduate and officer at the Lakeland Citrus and Chemical Bank.

Preston Mercer introduced three new USF Lakeland Directors: Dr. Nathan Thomas, Director of Diversity, who has just completed his doctorate in psychology at Michigan State University; Mr. Kevin Calkins, Interim Director of Institutional Research, comes from Lakeland Regional Medical Center; and Ms. Debbie Gula, recently promoted to Director of Finance and Auxiliary Services. These additions to the administrative infrastucture will help USF Lakeland support its next level of growth with the goal of meeting the needs of the students and serving our constituents in central Florida.

President’s Report

The President wished everyone a happy new year. Enrollment at Lakeland is up for the Spring Semester.
The Inter-Campus Academic Regulations document has undergone several iterations and revisions and at the last all-day meeting with Preston Mercer, Laurie Stryker, Ralph Wilcox, Karen White, and the President, the final changes were incorporated. The Executive Committee of the Faculty Senate will review the document before the President releases the final document to everyone. It will be a guideline document for academic matters and how faculty report, how programs are started and continued and is important for the SACS Accreditation Team to outline the responsibilities of all parties. These guidelines can be reviewed after a year and a half or so for any revisions that may be appropriate. The language in the original document has been modified through the review process and there is now consensus on this revised document. The President assured everyone that the anxiety resulting from the initial version of the ICAR has now been allayed with the re-write.

Preston Mercer told the group that the ICAR provides a systematic set of guidelines which will help USF Lakeland as it continues its rapid growth. It will help everyone do their job better. After a year or two the document can be revisited to make sure that the guidelines are still appropriate.

President Genshaft told the group she was looking forward to the Strategic Planning Workshop at USF Lakeland that will be taking place in the next few weeks.

Approval of Minutes
Chairman Ramil asked the Board for any corrections to the minutes of the July 26, 2004 meeting. There were none. Members Carole Philipson motioned and John Frost seconded motion to approve the minutes as written. Vote was unanimous.

Strategic Planning Workshop (Retreat)

Greg Paveza, Interim Associate Vice President for Academic Affairs, reported to the Board that the plans for the Strategic Planning Retreat which will serve as the basis for development of an on-going and usable strategic plan for the Lakeland Campus are underway. Three sets of tentative dates were indicated as possible times for the retreat in order to have as many board members involved as possible. Plan is to have a first half day session and a final full day session for invited faculty, administration and representatives of the community with an even split between members of the university and members of the community. The five accomplishments at the end of the retreat would be to achieve a common understanding of the current and intended state of planning at USF Lakeland; to review and if necessary, revise USF Lakeland’s current version of its mission statement; to draft a situation analysis; to draft a statement of USF Lakeland’s competitive advantages; and to draft a plan for degree program development. A website will be created to house the critical materials for review by the participants of the strategic planning process prior to the retreat and anyone who is interested in reviewing the documents.

John Ramil asked if the ACE (Academic Climate and Environment) working group should be involved early in the process. Dr. Paveza indicated that he would contact the group. President Genshaft suggested that some of the members of the Foundation Board should be included as participants such as Hinks Shimberg. Dr. Paveza indicated that Gene Engle in his capacity as a Foundation Board member would be invited to participate. She suggested Tina Johnson, who is also a Foundation Board member, as a possible participant. Preston Mercer indicated that Ray Hass, who facilitated the Tampa process, and the Eagle Training Group which completed the climate survey at USF Lakeland, have been suggested as facilitator of the retreat. They both know USF and would be worthy facilitators. The goal is to develop two documents, one an initial document and then another broader deeper set of strategic planning documents. John Ramil suggested that USF Lakeland look at each of the facilitators and make the decision as to which of the two would better serve the need.

Greg Paveza told the group that there are currently twelve faculty searches underway and three new faculty have been appointed this month: Jim Keebler, Marketing, is a transfer from the Sarasota Campus; Kim Lersch, Criminology, is a transfer from the Tampa Campus; and Smita Mathur, Psychological and Social Foundation assistant professor from SUNY-New Paltz.

USF/PCC Joint Use Facility Update

Bernard Mackey reported that substitutions for the dietetic lab and faculty space for the nutrition program have been incorporated into the plans for the facility. The space will be developed as a tiered classroom with a 50 student capacity in three rows of 17 seats. This is based on the model that is currently being constructed in the new College of Business building addition on the Tampa Campus. This classroom is well placed between the Information Technology and Business Administration areas.

Construction on the facility should begin by the end of February. Three to four weeks after commencement the slab for the building should be in place. Appropriations for the facility will be received in a multi-year format and this has been confirmed by the Department of Education Facilities area. The guaranteed maximum price for the construction of the facility is expected sometime between February and March. With roll out of some aspects of the construction that could not have been costed previously, such as security card access to external areas of the building mirroring the security system that is used on the Tampa campus utilizing student and staff identification cards, there will be some additions to the budget. WUSF public broadcasting is assisting in setting up the technology configuration for all the classrooms and the USF portion of the auditorium. Infrastructure for this will need to be added to the construction budget as well.

Furnishing and equipment budget is not adequate to serve all the needs. The $4M in equipment and furnishing that is needed will have a shortfall of approximately $2M. Development Director Sistrunk will be working hard to cover the remaining $2M from donor gifts. Designation for the new facility will be the Lakeland Technology Center.

Dr. Mercer stated that WUSF is now mentioning Lakeland along with the other campuses on their logo.
Dr. Mackey mentioned that problems in extending the signal had been part of reason that Lakeland had not been mentioned earlier. Upgrade in their equipment is also a factor. Lakeland is growing tremendously and those citizens now have access to WUSF as well.

John Ramil asked about the cost of the security measures for the new building. Dr. Mackey will communicate the security requirements to the architect and then the construction manager will cost it. By the time the Board next meets, the cost will be known and recommendations will be made at that time to address the cost. Some contingencies in the budget may help to absorb this additional cost. Some renovation funds for the top floor of the Lakeland Learning Center (LLC) had to be deferred and some of that unexpended budget in those contingency areas may be used to augment the renovation there. These cost items will be considered by the program building committee and the steering committee.

Completion date for occupancy of the joint use facility is expected prior to the Fall Semester of 2006.
Renovation of LLC would begin then and be completed by the end of Fall Semester 2006 for occupancy in Spring Semester 2007.

New USF Lakeland Master Planning Update

A follow up meeting took place in November with Mr. Neil Frazee, of Miller, Seller, Conner and Walsh, the planner for the Williams Company to determine what the areas of joint master planning that needed to occur, recognizing the adjacent areas to the university campus will need to be meshed with the university’s master plan. Deadlines and processes were discussed. The strategic planning efforts that will be undertaken will help to guide the master planning process for the new campus with regard to undergraduate and graduate program and staffing implications.

President Genshaft commented that it may be important to have the people who are developing the Williams Site at the Strategic Planning Retreat. Williams Company will work closely with us so that the property around the campus will mesh well. The 10-year program projections and working with Percis Rickes as part of the master planning process will help guide the final strategic planning product.

Review of a number of possible concepts for the global footprint layout of the campus on Parcel 1A was done with Reynolds, Smith & Hill in December. They are currently developing a unified concept as an outcome of those discussions. Those changes will be presented to the Master Planning Steering Committee and will be reviewed. Once this has been done a presentation to the Campus Board will be made so that the members can offer insight. A draft of the entire master plan should be available in May of 2005 that will allow us a 60-day time period to review it by all parts of the university with adoption taking place in July of 2005. After that a 90-day period of final discussions with the City of Lakeland to finalize the development agreement by October 2005 will take place.

Budget Report and Discussion

Josh Bresler referred the Board members to the documents he had provided earlier. He indicated an estimated carry forward balance of $1.14M at the end of fiscal year 2004-05 that could be used for program enhancements and reflects $1.1M being held back in carry forward from the previous year.
Lakeland campus maintains an approximate expenditure ratio of 80/20 which is in line with the other regional campuses. The ratio of expenditures of 82.6% in personnel and 17.4% in non-personnel is the projection for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2005. Academic program and support costs appear to be around $10.lM. June 30, 2005 will show an estimated carry forward of $843,000, holding back another $900,000 with a balance $633,000 for additional program enhancements. Installation of new computers in one of the computer classrooms to update the technology there brought the July 1, 2005 budget down from the former $992,229 to $842,229.

The auxiliary account activity is as follows: Lab and Studio Usage Revenue of $6,000 is expected this year but a cost of replacement equipment of approximately $16,000 and will reduce the account to a balance of $34,000 as of June 30 2005; Book Store Receipts revenues for 2004-05 are expected to be $32,000 and expenditures of $20,000 will leave an ending balance of $103,000 as of June 30, 2005. As of January 5, Lakeland has continuing and completed grant resources of $1.3M with indirect cost near 8.09%.

Dr. Mercer indicated that the funds being held back for program enhancement will be used to pay for additional space close to campus required for program development as it is identified. The campus has 19 classrooms and is completely out of space.

Other Business

President Genshaft told the group that the Legislative brochure is being finalized and will be distributed soon. The items that the University is stressing are keeping the base funding that we currently have, funding enrollment growth as developed by the Board of Governors, and continuation of the private matching fund. Last year the Legislature provided matching for the Cortellis Matching Gift Fund and USF is requesting that again this year. This is critical to the fund raising efforts of the University. Public Education Capital Outlay (PECO) funds are needed to fund infrastructure for the new campus at Lakeland and this will be considered in this year’s legislative session. Last year USF Sarasota/Manatee received funding for a new building on that campus, and this year USF is also requesting planning funds for St. Petersburg. The Tampa campus is requesting funds from PECO for the Visual and Performing Arts Center Building.

There being no other business before the Board, the meeting was adjourned.

Minutes recorded and transcribed by Lorie Miros