USF at Lakeland Campus Board
August 14, 2006 – USF Lakeland – LAC 1183
Meeting Minutes

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

President Genshaft welcomed everyone and introduced Trustee Sherrill Tomasino, the new Campus Board Chair. In June, after five years, current Chair Dick Beard stepped down as the BOT Chair, and Rhea Law was elected the new Chair. The USF Lakeland Campus Board Chair, John Ramil, was elected as the UBOT Vice Chair and could no longer continue to serve on the USF Lakeland Campus Board. Trustee Tomasino has been a trustee since receiving a Board of Governor’s appointment in 2005 and was appointed by BOT Chair Rhea Law to serve as the USF Lakeland Campus Board Chair.

Call to Order and Introductions

Chair Tomasino called the meeting to order at 1:35 p.m.

President's Comments

2,300 students graduated at USF’s Summer Commencement. A presidential Medallion was presented to Trustee Dick Beard at this commencement in honor of his being the first UBOT chair and shepherding the institution through the last five years of growth and challenges. Approximately 9,000 students will graduate this year. Ranking of Big East USF peers was distributed to the Board and is attached as reference. The Tampa Bay area is comprised of seven counties, which is #25 in population if considered the size of a state, after California - #1, Texas - #2, New York - #3, and Florida at #4. There is a Board Retreat coming up on August 18. August 28 is first day of classes for Fall semester.

CEO's Comments

Dr. Goodman thanked the Board for being here and the President for hiring him and for her exceptional commitment to this campus and for having a remarkable vision in building the USF system – which now reaches one out of every four Floridians. He thanked the Board for their warm welcome and support. He outlined some applied research philosophical foundations for the direction of the campus and spoke about next steps to build a campus strategic plan. Dr. Goodman has been actively involved in meeting community members and has learned that people of the region want access to higher education within reasonable distance; opportunity to acquire 21st Century skills that will help shape the future of the region; and choice – the ability to have enough curricular and disciplinary offerings to meet a wide range of skill levels that are required throughout the region. He identified five domains that have been broadly discussed; information technology; health care; agriculture technologies; business, education and an arts and science core to support those domains. He will continue to work with K-12 and PCC to create our regional solutions for a better system. He will be working to further define the focus and begin outlining disciplinary plans in terms of numbers of students served, numbers of faculty and staff needed, time tables, and overall cost of the endeavor. His goal is to bring the draft strategic plan featuring these five domains to the next Campus Board meeting for discussion and feedback. He asked the Campus Board to approve his request to move forward with developing the five domains presented.

The President praised Dr. Goodman for his dynamic leadership and his energy in developing the domains discussed. In order to have USF work well, each region needs to have areas of specialty that complement each other. His plan is unique in Florida’s education mission.

Chair Tomasino asked for a motion to accept Dr. Goodman’s proposal to rework the strategic plan to include the five domains. John Frost moved to accept the proposal, and for Dr. Goodman to come back to the Board with a specific draft strategic plan by the next Board meeting. Paul Colee seconded the motion and vote was unanimous.

Approval of Minutes

Chair Tomasino requested a motion to approve minutes of the April 19, 2006 Campus Board special meeting. Kelly Underhill moved to accept with second by John Frost. Vote was unanimous.

Status of Strategic Plan

A history of the development of the Strategic Plan was included in the Board’s packet of information as well as areas related to technology, manufacturing engineering, education, community health, economic development and entrepreneurship. Stronger emphasis on agricultural technology and a strong theme underlying 21st Century technology will be addressed. Dr. Goodman commented that the community was well represented in the direction the campus had identified. In so doing, the strategic plan would have to be reviewed again and those domains that were not represented incorporated. The Steering committee will take comments and recommendations made by the ACE workgroup at its meeting on May 8, 2006, and the discussions that Dr. Goodman has had with the community in terms of his vision for the campus. The community will have the opportunity for further input through a survey.. The faculty will also be involved in discussions regarding the new focus on technology and applied research-driven programs.

Mater Plan Update

Dr. Greg Paveza provided visual displays of the Williams property and described the layout and other aspects of the master plan. Final edits to the master plan have been completed and it will be sent to the printer for final binding later in the week. Each Board member will receive a copy of the plan and meetings will be set for review and approval. Once the Campus Board approves the plan a join meeting of the BOT ACE workgroup and the campus board will be scheduled. Upon approval a special second public hearing will be scheduled. The master plan will then be forwarded to the UBOT for approval.

Transfer of title from Williams Acquisition Holding Company to USF will be completed within the month after approval of the master plan. By year’s end the land will be owned and the building program planning process can begin to target the first building occupancy on the new campus location in fall of 2009.

State Universities by statute have a unique relationship with cities unlike what Lakeland has been used to in dealing with private schools and colleges, much like a reservation in the middle of their city. Formal discussions will begin as soon as the master plan is approved and complete. The Pace Road interchange engineering drawings were discussed showing outline of planned roads relative to the Parkway. Turnpike Authority will conduct a public hearing concerning the Pace Road exchange. City of Lakeland Park District will be meeting with representatives of the Lakeland Campus later in the week to discuss a joint project for a recreation park and a bike route on Parcel 2 in the southwest corner of the land being donated to USF. TECO provision of electricity will begin as well. An initial conceptual drawing of the entire development area by Miller Sullens including 2700 areas of Williams property has been done showing a village area to include some business and retail as well as a bookstore, planned research park and commercial area targeted for warehousing and the residential single family and multiple family areas. Williams has not yet identified a developer or identified any time frames to begin their development. Research park development is estimated to begin around 2009. Water service discussions are occurring with the City of Lakeland.

CIP Report and Discussion

Dr. Mackey reminded the Board members that there are some modest costs associated with building a new campus. The Board approved conceptually the capital improvement plan on April 19. The estimates were under revision during and after that time. There were differences in the amounts that were ultimately submitted to the Board of Governors and those changes are reflected in the documents for today’s meeting. Dr. Mackey reviewed the documents with the Board. Phase 1 includes planning and construction dollars for the first building and infrastructure above and below ground. The determination of how the net 100,000 sq. ft. in Phase 1 will be used in this first building will be based on discipline development, program mix, the amount of funding and the pace at which the funding is realized. The funding spread over four years would be for planning, construction, furnishings and equipment for all of Phase 2 as shown in the document. Phase 2 will include 200,000 sq ft. The narrative document provided to the Board members gives a clear understanding of why a new campus location is needed as well as the need for “off the top” funding rather than making requests for funding from PECO. An $11M increase in cost was noted and associated with cost escalation for construction raw materials, infrastructure and technology costs. The PECO revenue stream is not intended to cover the growth of a new campus but to fund enhancements to existing campuses.

Budget Report

Josh Bresler presented the budget report for 2005-06. He discussed the budget adjustments that were made. Roughly 84% of the budget covered faculty and staff costs for programs and program support and 16% covered expenses associated with those programs. Carry forward funds for 2005-06 is $2.9M which includes $1M from the Legislature for new faculty hires and programs identified as “enhanced access.” The new Joint Use facility will need furniture, fixtures, and equipment, a part of which will have to be paid from carry forward. It is expected that this will be paid from previous year carry forward. A total of $4.8M is carry forward to 2006-07.

The proposed 2006-07 budget was discussed for Board approval. Mr. Bresler provided a comparison to the 2005-06 budget. Approximately 10% of the 2006-07 budget is being held in reserve. The President gave the Board members a broad description of how enrollment corridors over a three-year period drive the budget allocations university-wide Adjustments to low enrollments have been addressed at USF Lakeland to soften the impact of missing corridor projections of enrollment. USF Lakeland’s enrollment is dispersed at other off campus locations due to lack of space on its primary campus site. This impacts the calculation of official headcounts as well. More classroom space will be available as the joint use facility comes on line and the renovations to LLC are done. A major marketing blitz is planned to help increase enrollments in addition to other methods to increase enrollments such as review of programs, better utilization of existing space, class offerings, and student affiliation to campus. John Frost asked if there is a verification of enrollments, and President Genshaft described the process of verification and explained how cuts to funding are handled if corridor enrollments are not met. Estimates of enrollment are critical to this process. Currently USF Lakeland is 12% below estimates according the Kevin Calkins, Director of Institutional Research. Mr. Frost wanted to know why there were fluctuations in enrollments over a two-year period covering 2003-04 and 2004-05. Judith Ponticell, Associate Vice President for Academic Affairs, explained that after the “No Child Left Behind” requirement, many teachers enrolled as non-degree seekers to satisfy those requirements. Once those credits were earned, there was a leveling out of enrollment.

A motion to approve the 2006-07 budget of $14.3M was requested of the Board. A motion was made by Carole Philipson to approve the budget and seconded by Kelly Underhill. Vote was unanimous.

Chair Tomasino mentioned she was pleased with her appointment as the new Chair of the USF Lakeland Campus Board, and is looking forward to working with everyone. She referred the Board members to the article out of the Florida Trend magazine that was dispersed indicating the anticipated tremendous growth in the central Florida region.

Dr. Goodman extended an invitation to the Board and the President to come hear him speak to the Gray- Robinson Community Leader Forum on August 23, 2006, at 7 a.m. in the Magnolia Building in the Lake Mirror Complex.

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

Minutes recorded and transcribed by Lorie Miros