USF Lakeland Campus Board Chair John Ramil convened the meeting of the USF Lakeland Campus Board at the USF Lakeland Campus at 9:00 a.m. with the following members present: Mr. John Frost, Mrs. Carole Philipson, Mr. John Ramil, Chair. Excused Absences: Ms. Kelly Underhill and Ms. Seretha Tinsley. Dr. Judy Genshaft, USF President and Dr. Preston Mercer, Campus Executive Officer and Dean were also present.

1. Introduction

Mr. Ramil and Dr. Mercer made introductions and welcomed the Board, President Genshaft, and everyone to the meeting.

2. Approval of February 8, 2002 Minutes

Mr. Ramil requested a motion to approve the minutes from the last meeting. Motion made was to approve the minutes as presented. Motion was seconded and the Board unanimously approved the minutes without corrections.

3. PCC/USF Lakeland Joint-Use Facility

Mr. Ramil introduced Dr. Bernard Mackey. Dr. Mackey indicated that we have Legislative support and should be allocated funds to begin the planning phase for the new joint-use technology facility. A great deal of progress has been made in the last eight months. The 240-page document for review today describes the process and costs of the building and is a state requirement which sets out what we intend to do in terms of facility use (i.e., classrooms, faculty offices, computer and science labs, etc.) and will assure release of the planning funds already dedicated to this facility in the 2001 Legislature. It includes a schedule of the events that will take us from planning to occupancy. The budget summary shows apportionment of the cost to USF and to PCC. Faculty and staff who participated in the development of this document are to be congratulated. Vice President Swinford, Jim Horton, Mike Goula and the Director of Facilities at PCC, George Urbano, should be thanked for their hard work and cooperation in getting the work of the project done as well. We were able to complete this process in record time. It was done through multiple institutions, systems, boards and even two presidents. This week we received the work that the document has been approved by the Department of Education and the Division of Colleges and Universities. The building will cost about $28M, $8M of which has been released. The remaining $20M is for construction, furnishings and equipment. There will be a meeting in the next couple of weeks to begin the process of hiring an architect. Plans for the building will take the better part of a year to complete. The next legislative session will address the balance of the funding for the Fall 2004 occupancy; construction time may take as long as 18 months after groundbreaking. PCC will occupy 55,500 sq. ft. and USF will occupy 33,000 s2q. ft. It is a technology building with science and computing labs in the facility. There will be some shared classrooms, auditoria, and portions of space occupied by student services. The building will be owned by PCC as is appropriate under state law. The lead institution on the next set of processes will be PCC. Formally designated USF or PCC classrooms, as availability permits, will be shared as well.

President Genshaft indicated that it is an important building as it will be the signature building of the campus so design features will be very important. Mr. Ramil requested that Dr. Mackey take back to the committee and PCC the appreciation of the Board and to thank them for the hard work that was put into the report that went to the Commissioner of Education in support of the joint use facility.

4. New USF Lakeland Campus Update
Dr. Mercer presented the letter that President Genshaft sent to the Williams Company expressing her interest to work with USF Lakeland and the Williams Company to develop a campus in their research park on I-4. There have been a number of articles regarding this venture which have been copied for the Board and are part of the agenda item (attached). J.D. Alexander has been very supportive and offered his assistance in introducing the concept of a new campus to the Legislature.

USF is part of the educational establishment here in Polk County and will work to develop educational opportunity for students to attain 4-year degrees. We are working closely with other educational institutions to improve the quality of life in Polk County. USF, with its Research I designation, is viewed by us as a magnet for economic and cultural expansion in central Florida along the high-tech corridor. This is being recognized by the business community. A document was sent out to the community to acquaint citizens with the reasons why a new campus would be important to this area and to describe what a regional university can actually mean to the area in which it is situated. There has been good feedback from this mailing. We are in the process of bringing in four portable buildings July 1 since we are totally out of space. We are operating a university with only 19 classrooms. The timing is good to develop a plan for a new campus and we want to inform the community and the other educational institutions in Polk County in order to work together to improve opportunities here. The Governor and staff approve of the concept of a new campus for Polk County, and J. D. Alexander planned to put some language before the session regarding a new campus. If companies are going to come here, educational opportunity is an important piece of that decision. Polk County is the 37th largest school district in the country out of 1500, which presents some interesting challenges for the Polk County School Board, K-12. The Board has a $730M budget and serves 80,000 students with an elected superintendent. USF has just received a grant to train principals here and that will impact the K-12 group.

Mr. Ramil indicated that Dr. Mercer’s efforts are appreciated and supports the communication with the community. We are heading towards a good trifecta here with a research I state university, fine private school in Florida Southern College and a fine community college in PCC.

President Genshaft suggested that what we may need to do is an RFP for anyone to submit a proposal for land donation to the university. Once that is done, there are people who will determine which would be the best site. In the past under the Board of Regents the land has been designated as “state” land and not specific to the university. It may be that under this new governance the University would own the land and there may be a new process that would be implemented under the new governance system. In an effort to work together in Polk County, about every six weeks we have meetings with Florida Southern and Polk Community College to talk about what we are doing and how we can improve this whole region regarding growth and educational effectiveness. Dr. Mercer also mentioned that we want to work with the Central Florida Development Council to create a relationship with the business community.

Chairman Ramil asked that everyone involved should thank J. D. Alexander for his tireless efforts on our behalf. J. D. has been the point person for us. Dr. Mercer communicates with the legislative delegation often to update them on what we are doing always includes our appreciation in the newspaper coverage and in communications with them, to thank them for their support. John Laurent has been active in helping us as well.

5. Budget Overview

Dr. Mercer introduced Josh Bresler to discuss our budget which funds faculty, staff and programs. Our budget process is not the same as the other regionals in that we don’t go directly to Tallahassee with our budget requirements. Fiscally, this is the first year that each of the campuses has had the Campus Board designation. July 1 audit will be done in December and that should give us separate budgets for each of the campuses. The budget detail is summarized on one page and included in the materials distributed to the Board members.

Major changes from this and last report concerns the budget reduction, which was reinterpreted. As a result we received back some of that budget reduction, of which 90% is salary. Support services from PCC are estimated at $63,000 but could be a little higher. We have not received an invoice yet. This figure covers services required to deliver programs including security, maintenance and a stipend for lease payments. We have to estimate summer costs which are included in the document. Carry forward of $436,000 can be used for programs.

Dr. Mercer clarified that the reason summer costs so much is that our faculty are on 9-month contracts so for summer program delivery we have to contract with our faculty on an individual basis.

6. Memorandum of Agreement Document

Dr. Mercer presented the Memorandum of Agreement document to the Board for discussion. Dr. Mercer stated that each of the regionals needs to establish a relationship with USF Board of Trustees. Sarasota/Manatee and St. Petersburg were given autonomy last year by the Legislature, and Dr. Genshaft has extended that autonomy to our campus as well. Each of the three campuses is treated equally and it makes it more effective administratively. The Memorandum of Agreement is tailored specifically for USF Lakeland and defines the operating procedures and will serve as our governing document. The 3rd “Whereas” indicating that the campus will offer a complete degree program in areas that are responsive to regional needs is an important part of the document. The campus offers 20 complete programs now with more on the way. Our scholarly life flows from USF Tampa because our tenure and accreditation resides there, and the entities that we deal with in terms of scholarship and the business services including legal services are there. President Genshaft mentioned that this document is similar to what the other regional campuses have adopted. Ms. Philipson asked for clarification regarding the SACS accreditation. Dr. Mercer explained that we are third in line, and that USF St. Petersburg will go through the process initially. We will be able to utilize their experience to request SACS accreditation here in Lakeland. President Genshaft indicated that to achieve SACS accreditation the campus would be required to offer 4-year programs and Lakeland is not configured that way at this time. When she meets with the SACS accreditation agency, she will talk to them about this. Lakeland has grown from 6 faculty to 25. We have about 110 adjuncts teaching for us. The USF Board of Trustees needs to approve the Memorandum of Agreement as well. Ms. Philipson moved to accept the agreement. The motion was seconded by John Frost and passed by vote of the Board members present.

7. Other Business

Dr. Mercer remarked that growing the campus, unlike strategic plans where you write one sentence and go forth to execute that plan, requires an action plan complete with on-going activities while we are writing and modifying the document. Strategic planning surfaced at the universities in the early 90’s. Now it is fairly commonplace wherever you go. There are more business community leaders on university boards and they tend to utilize the concept. It is hard sometimes, however, to integrate planning into research because you don’t always know what your results are going to be. We are growing our programs and increasing student numbers while at the same time writing an evolving action plan. Growth in enrollments over the next few years was under-estimated, and we have actually received funds because we are about 2 to 3 years ahead of where we estimated. The action plan has to do with increasing the number of students on campus and all of these items are dependent to an extent on the budget. The increase in faculty members will help us reach our goal of having full degree programs taught by Lakeland-based faculty so that they can oversee the quality of the discipline of their programs and be more accessible to students. We will be working on developing programs where we are more than one faculty member deep and will continue to add faculty and support staff to manage these programs, as long as the budget will allow us to do that. SACS accreditation will be one of the goals that we will work to achieve at Lakeland in order to assure students that we meet the same standards required of Tampa. This action plan will be brought back to the Board for action but is presented as an informational piece at this time.

Faculty listing (attached) shows the searches that are currently in progress in red. We have hired two psychology faculty which will be shared with Tampa psychology department. Mark Karver, whose research is in counseling psychology, will be more associated with our campus. Kristen Salomon, whose research focuses on biomedical studies in which young children’s heart rates are measured to determine their cardiovascular disease later on, will be more associated with Tampa but we will exchange teaching assignments between the two. We are currently searching for a social work faculty member, and conducting searches in education. The blue # sign shows the faculty that were here when Dr. Mercer arrived in 1999. Dr. Frank Young and other faculty developed the Information Technology program and will present it to the Undergraduate Council for approval. Because the program fits with both Business and Engineering, it will be administered through the Office of Undergraduate Studies. We are hiring three faculty for this program to be in place in the Fall or January of 2003. President Genshaft mentioned that the designation of Lakeland as a technology center should drive the searches to obtain faculty who will utilize technology in their teaching. Dr. Mercer indicated that we have hired Dr. Naomi Boyer with a degree in instructional technology to assist our current and future faculty with this technology. The campus has been rewired and new equipment has been purchased to help us develop more technology-rich courses.

We have fulfilled our hiring plan with the exception of two positions due to what was thought to be a budget reduction. As Mr. Bresler indicated, those funds have now been released and we will be developing searches for two positions in Business. Faculty are beginning to go out into the business community to create more awareness. Dr. JoAnne Larsen, Industrial Engineering, will be working on a study for Polk County regarding plans for a power plant. We are going to interact with our community in many ways.

The study on the arts in Polk County was done last year and this work is now in print. The study was well received by the community. The report shows that Polk County is a reasonable destination for business development. Faculty will be interacting more with the community and doing more of this type of research.

The operating procedures that the Board received today will be presented for passage at the next Board meeting. USF Sarasota/Manatee and USF St. Petersburg have adopted similar governing procedures. Comments should be forwarded to Lorie Miros.

President Genshaft indicated that the USF Board of Trustees meetings are scheduled for four times a year and USF Lakeland may wish to conform to that type of schedule as well, meeting prior to the Tampa Board so that anything that needs approval by that Board can be done after action by the USF Lakeland Campus Board. Mr. Ramil suggested that because the next Tampa Board meeting is near the end of August, the USF Lakeland Board members should meet prior to that. Lorie Miros will poll the Board to determine the next meeting.

Mr. Ramil mentioned graduation Monday night at the Lakeland Center, with a reception prior to that. He thanked the Board, faculty and staff for all the good work being done to educate our students. There being no further business before the Board, Mr. Ramil adjourned the meeting at 11:20 a.m. Minutes taken and transcribed by Lorie Miros.