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

Call to Order
Chairman John Ramil called the meeting to order at 1:00 p.m. and thanked the administration, faculty and staff for continuing to move USF Lakeland forward. He congratulated Carole Philipson and Kelly Underhill on their Board reappointments. According to The Chronicle of Higher Education USF ranks 71 out of 100, up from 88 last year, in federal funding.

President’s Comments
The first football game will be played over the Labor Day weekend at Penn State. Two commencements graduating approximately 1,200 students will take place in Tampa this coming Saturday with the youngest graduate age 18 and the oldest graduate age 77. Student admissions for the Fall Semester are promising.

CEO’s Comments
Dr. Mercer invited the Board members to review the USF Lakeland Annual Report for 2004-2005 and congratulated the faculty and staff for continuing to meet the needs of central Florida with excellence.

Approval of Minutes
Chairman Ramil called for approval of the minutes. Kelly Underhill identified a typographical error which will be corrected and referred the Board members to the last paragraph on page 2 where it indicated that Dr. Mackey would contact Williams Company regarding a time extension of the land agreement, which was not quite accurate. The last paragraph will be corrected. Motion was made by John Frost to approve the minutes of the May 23, 2005 Board meeting as amended. The motion was seconded and passed unanimously.

Strategic Planning for USF Lakeland Update
Judith Ponticell, Associate Vice President for Academic Affairs, gave an overview of the process that was used at the February 2005 Workshop with broad participation to initiate the strategic planning work for the campus. The Strategic Planning Steering Committee, appointed at the February Workshop, has been working to develop a draft of the Vision, Mission, Values and Goals statement from the workshop outcomes. Guiding documents from current USF Lakeland strategic plan and USF Tampa where reviewed to assure alignment with the USF system and its strategic plan. The importance of accountability and ongoing assessment of the plan were discussed with the Board members. The Board will review the draft plan once more, after which the document will go out for review and comments to the governing bodies for the USF System and USF Lakeland, faculty, staff, administrators, and community partners to establish a starting point for discussion.

A set of eight broad goals and objectives were outcomes from the February workshop. The next step is to begin to identify which actions need to be taken, who is responsible, what resources are needed, benchmarking of progress, types of data required, performance indicators, action plans, ownership and ultimately the final strategic plan. The final document for comment and review should be ready in the Fall, with adoption and implementation proposed for January 2006.

Chairman Ramil encouraged the Board members to carefully review the draft strategic plan documents in their packets and forward any comments to Judith Ponticell. President Genshaft was pleased to have the Board involved. She advised the Board that in comments to the Board of Governor’s regarding the USF System, USF indicated that it would use the University of Houston model, where the regional campuses are accredited by SACS. USF Lakeland should focus on offering undergraduate and master’s level degrees. The Tampa campus would continue to have the undergraduate, master’s, doctoral level and professional degrees. The Board of Governors approved the USF system, with this stipulation.

Chairman Ramil asked Dr. Ponticell to share the Board’s appreciation for the work that the Strategic Planning Steering Committee is doing with its members.

USF Lakeland Campus Master Plan Review and Approval
Revised Executive Summaries (posted on the web) were handed out and accepted. Dr. Paveza requested that the Board consider and take appropriate action regarding the Draft, USF Lakeland Campus Master Plan incorporating the revised conceptualization “A” as the proposed plan for the new campus. Overview of the conceptualization for the new campus was provided. Power point presentation is available on the web.
Dr. Paveza requested that the Board approve in concept the proposed Draft USF Lakeland Campus Master Plan - the vital first step at arriving at the initial campus master plan for the development of the USF Lakeland I-4 Polk Parkway Campus. After discussion, Carole Philipson made the motion, seconded by Kelly Underhill, with unanimous vote to accept the proposed concept of the draft campus master plan for the new USF Lakeland campus, including the elements that were distributed at the May 23, 2005 Lakeland Campus Board meeting.

Once the approved plan is approved by the UBOT on September 8, the 90-day public comment period will begin on September 12 with an open public information session followed by an evening hearing. A written document will be provided to all appropriate agencies. After the plan is reviewed by the CDC (Campus Development Committee) and ACE Workgroup, the USF Lakeland Campus Board will review it for final action in early February. The University Board of Trustees would provide final approval at their February meeting.

Budget Report and Discussion
Dr. Alice Murray discussed the reorganization of the USF Lakeland Budget unit to reflect the organizational structure of the USF Tampa campus. Josh Bresler will direct the budget function, and Debbie Gula will direct the business, auxiliary, finance and accounting functions. Decentralizing the USF Lakeland budget has been undertaken this year so that each division or department will have fiscal responsibility for their allocation. This will help in aligning resources with the strategic planning process that is currently underway.

This year, increases at USF Lakeland included $1M for continued program enhancement and $1.6M allocated for growth. The 3.6% salary increase granted by the State Legislature was based on the salary levels as of June 30, 2004. Last year’s raises were not factored in and therefore the shortfall in the salary allocation will be made up from USF Lakeland’s reserves.

Mr. Bresler discussed last year’s reconciliation and this year’s Legislative allocation. He explained the indirect costs of $786,873 which are charged to USF Lakeland for services that the USF Tampa campus provides. This charge has remained constant in years past. Increase in State funding over last year is $2.6M, or a 24% increase, which includes the $1M special program enhancement allocation. 2004-05 carry forward was $1.2M, bringing the residual carry forward to $3.2M. Five percent of the budget allocation will be held back in reserves as a state requirement. Student Government Association deficit of $2,004 is a non-recurring event and based on the carry forward of $275,360. This deficit will not have a major impact. The $8,850 Lab and Studio category deficit is a one-time cost for equipment to be used over a span of years that was incurred in the 2004-05 fiscal year and is not a reoccurring cost each year. Lakeland’s academic computing division allocates a significant percent of the budget to deliver the latest technology to its faculty, staff and classrooms for student use and will continue to do so. Motion to accept 2004-05 budget reconciliation report and approve plan for allocation of resources in 2005-06 fiscal year was made by Paul Colee and seconded by John Frost. Vote to accept report and approve 2005-06 resource allocations was unanimous.

Dr. Murray shared with the Board that USF Lakeland will develop an internal Budget and Finance Oversight Committee and invited participation on the committee by a Board member who may have interest.

Other Business
There being no further business, the meeting adjourned at 3:20 p.m., Monday, August 8, 2005.

Minutes recorded and transcribed by Lorie Miros