In attendance: Vice President Preston Mercer, John Frost, Carole Philipson, Kelly Underhill, Seretha Tinsley and Chairman John Ramil. President Judy Genshaft was not in attendance.

Chairman John Ramil called the meeting to order and welcomed the Board members and friends of USF Lakeland to the meeting. He congratulated the faculty, staff and administration on a wonderful third commencement ceremony where 120 students were graduated this May, many with excellent grade point averages. Mr. Ramil acknowledged the commencement participation of Carole Philipson and Kelly Underhill and thanked them. Dr. Mercer indicated that effective with the upcoming academic year, USF Lakeland will establish two commencement ceremonies, one in the Fall and one in the Spring, to accommodate the increasing number of graduates.

Dr. Mercer was introduced and commented that our enrollments this summer are up 28% with Sarasota enrollment at 25%.

Approval of Minutes

Chairman Ramil asked the Board for any comments or corrections. There were none and Kelly Underhill motioned that the minutes be accepted as presented. Seretha Tinsley seconded the motion and the vote was unanimous.

Land Acquisition Update

Alice Murray provided information regarding the timetable for determining the best of the five sites for a USF Lakeland campus development. The committee has been moving ahead and has been giving their deliberations due diligence as this will be a very important long-reaching recommendation to the Board. All site visits have been completed. Cresent Cross Cattle Company was visited on February 19 and the Hacklake Forest property in Ft. Meade on March 4 as well as Old Florida Plantation that same day. On March 18 Clear Springs property in Bartow was visited and the final site, the Williams Company property site, on March 31. During the same time period the process of acquiring the Campus Master Planner was going on throughout January-February, with the RFP and analysis process of the various proposals, the short listing and the presentations took place, culminating in March. Dr. Mackey will offer additional information regarding this process, but Reynolds, Smith and Hill has been hired as the Campus Master Planner. As part of that process the Master Planner will participate as consultants with regard to analysis of various sites and will deliver information that the committee needs to make informed decisions about each of the five sites under consideration for the new campus. The committee intends to visit one or more locations that have recently gone through this same process of campus development where decisions had to be made regarding innovative ways dealing with smaller land availability or multiple use of buildings proposed at those sites. Florida Gulf Coast University is one such location which was recommended to visit by our consultants as well. Curtis Bullock, Vice President for Administrative Services at Florida Gulf Coast, has participated in many issues with new buildings at USF and has agreed to share some of his experiences. He is more than willing to have the contingent from USF come to that campus to discuss some of the challenges that they faced in developing their campus site. The University of Tampa in recent years has built a multi-purpose building on their campus which serves as residence hall, classrooms, and meeting space. University of Central Florida has also undergone considerable construction in an effort to accommodate their growing student body with an interesting layout - a core building from which buildings have been built out in subsequent circles from the central core. Arrangements are being made to view one or more of these facilities in the next few weeks. On May 7, the committee met with Reynolds, Smith and Hill. They gave the committee members a generalized view of the kind of work they will be doing and shared with the committee some concerns they had about the time frame that has been put in place. It became apparent that because of the number of sites under consideration and the extent of the work that was required was such that the master planners didn’t feel they could meet the original time frame and provide a quality work report. In order to make the appropriate recommendations to the USF Lakeland Campus Board, the committee felt that taking a little more time conducting due diligence was in the best interests of the State of Florida, the taxpayers of this state, and this community and the region for now and the future. Reynolds, Hill and Smith, after consultation with their subcontractors regarding the time needed to conduct all the necessary evaluations and analyses of each of the five sites, have determined that an aggressive work schedule will mean that they will be able to have a final draft report ready for the committee by July 14. The Land Acquisition Committee will invite all the donors to hear those presentations as well so that if there are any concerns from any of the donors with regard to any of the information provided, there will be an opportunity for those issues to be brought up so that if need be, Reynolds, Smith and Hill would follow up with any corrective analysis that may be needed. There will be an opportunity for the donors to provide any kind of enhancements to the original proposals that they submitted after the July 14 presentation. This is not a re-opening of the RFP process and there will be no new proposals allowed. This is an opportunity for the donors to provide any kind of modifications or enhancements to the original proposals that they may wish to alter, based on the information delivered by Reynolds, Smith and Hill as well as the comments made by the Land Acquisition Committee members at the July 14 meeting. We will provide one week after the July 14 meeting, to the close of business on July 21, to provide the donors this opportunity to modify their original proposals. The committee will not begin its deliberations until after July 21 when the members will be able to review the Reynolds, Smith and Hill final draft report as well as any revisions to any of the five donor proposals. Between July 22 and August 8, the committee will complete its deliberation process and prepare its recommendation. The week of August 11 will then be targeted for a possible Board meeting jointly with members of the Academic and Campus Environment committee of the UBOT to hear the presentation by the committee and master planner to this body.

Chairman Ramil indicated that the Board was concerned that the right decision be made and at that same time be sensitive to the donor’s needs. Dr. Murray indicated there was one donor who was concerned about the delays in reaching a final decision and there has been close communication with this donor to answer concerns and questions. The donors met with the Land Acquisition committee on June 19 to answer any concerns about the process and have been working hard to communicate both verbally and in written format as concerns arise. At the recommendation of legal counsel we scheduled a meeting yesterday to bring all the donors in to talk about any concerns or questions they had. All the donors were very affirmative with regard to the fact that this process was very necessary to arrive at an appropriate recommendation for a new USF Lakeland campus site. They understood the due diligence and why this was necessary. The donors were interested in what the next steps were. It was indicated that following the USF Lakeland Campus Board’s concurrence with the recommendation that the Land Acquisition Committee makes to this Board, the recommendation would then be presented at the next University Board of Trustees Board meeting in the Fall, and at that point the recommendation would be finalized. The donors were comfortable with that.

Chairman Ramil thanked Dr. Murray for her report and for the hard work the committee has undertaken to date. Mr. Gene Engle and Dr. Mackey were also thanked for their contributions.

New Campus Master Plan - Update

Chairman Ramil opened the floor to Dr. Mackey for his report. Dr. Mackey indicated that Phase A of identifying the land on which the campus will be built is nearing completion by Dr. Murray and the committee and normally institutions don’t have the opportunity to pick the land on which to build a new campus and the creation of a master plan in quite this way. Once Phase A is completed and the recommendations are made to Dr. Mercer, President Genshaft, and the two Boards, Phases B through F will follow with regard to the master planning on that site. Reynolds, Smith and Hills will be our consultants for site specific work and on through the Phases to follow. The types of work the master planners will do include development of a comprehensive academic facilities plan, building massing and footprint layout/conformations, infrastructure configurations and alternatives, traffic and utility impacts, identification of specific development issues and preliminary coordination with affected municipalities. This work will not include any specific architectural design plans for any specific buildings. Work on Phases B-F are expected to take approximately a year with the first iteration of a new campus master plan expected in July of 2004. Near the conclusion of this process Reynolds, Smith and Hill will make a presentation to the USF Lakeland Campus Board.

USF/PCC Joint-Use Facility - Update

Dr. Mackey shared with the Board that activities continue to complete contract negotiations with Hunton Brady, Inc., the selected architect/engineering firm, and these negotiations should be complete within the next month. The 3 to 4 oral interviews of the short listed construction manager candidates will take place on July 15 of the 14 firms who have competed for the contract. Interested firms included, local, national and international companies. Dr. Mackey indicated that the 14 individual proposals are available for review if there is interest. The scope and magnitude of this project for our community is large. This is the most significant capital project ever in the history of PCC. For USF, it is one of the largest and together it is quite attractive to all the firms who have shown their interest in participating. Each of the 4 finalist companies for construction manager were described by Dr. Mackey. Centex-Rooney/Rodda Construction is an international firm with offices in Orlando while Rodda Construction is a Lakeland firm. These two firms have teamed together. Hinkleman Construction is partnering with Perry McCall. Hinkleman is a firm in Lakeland and Perry McCall is from Jacksonville. The third firm is Holder Construction from St. Petersburg and the fourth is Skanska USA, an international firm. As soon as the construction manager is chosen, the architect/engineer, construction management team, as well as both teams from PCC and USF will begin formal program validation in the Fall of 2003. The document that was prepared a year or so ago will be re-examined to re-think what we need after the largess of the Legislature and leadership of our campus has grown our enrollments in ways that two years ago we didn’t envision. There will be some redesign of that document. The legislative allocations for USF this legislative session funded the remaining $4.6M to complete the total allocation of $10.8M. PCC received $6.2M leaving $5.5M yet to be allocated. Groundbreaking for the joint use facility could take place as early as 2004/05. If everything is in place and using the most optimistic schedule conceivable, occupancy of the Joint-Use Facility might occur at the earliest in late December of 2005.

PCC/USF Operating Contracts -Update

Due to the relationship that we have with PCC, USF must depend on PCC for a number of academic and administrative support services. Dr. Mackey is working with PCC to renegotiate the basic operating contract and four contract addenda defining these services with PCC. The four areas include Utilities/Maintenance/Custodial/Grounds; Security; Food/Vending; and Library services. The Legislature funds PCC entirely for some of these services and they are at no cost to USF. Others are cost-contractual issues because the Legislature doesn’t fund those services. Security and library services are two of these areas. Upon the direction of CEO Mercer, we have done an extensive review of the contracts and are currently negotiating with PCC to incorporate some significant changes that have been overlooked over the past decade or so. Three of the four contracts have been reviewed and are now ready for final approval and signature by Vice President/CEO Mercer and President Genshaft in the coming weeks. The Library Services contract will require significant changes that are needed caused in large measure by the growth of USF Lakeland in terms of the number of degree programs now available with the advent of new degree programs at the undergraduate level as well as the increased enrollments in all of those programs. The old tenants of the contract have outstripped the ability for the library and its current operations to meet the needs that USF Lakeland now has. Funding for library facilities at most institutions does not reach full funding. The community college library has difficulty keeping pace when trying to serve a population of upper level undergraduate and graduate students at the university level. Dr. Mackey and representative from PCC will be negotiating a new model to take this into consideration. Electronic relationships with the USF Tampa Library will be utilized and will greatly enhance the ability to serve this body of students and faculty as well. Chairman Ramil asked how soon the contract negotiations would be completed and Dr. Mackey indicated that the next meeting to discuss library services will take place in early July with final agreement no later than 60 days from that meeting. There may be some significant budgetary consequences with some of the decisions that will have to be made and that may pose some additional hurdles that will need to be addressed. Dr. Mercer indicated that USF was very fortunate to have Dr. Mackey actively working on the negotiations of these service contracts.

Development Report

Dr. Al Sistrunk introduced Kathy Prevatt who chaired the Faculty/Staff Campaign for USF Lakeland this year. This campus has the greatest percentage increase over goal of any other unit in the university; 203% of goal. $15,200 was brought in from gifts and pledges. The goal was $6,000. The President’s Award was presented to USF Lakeland as a result of Ms. Prevatt’s efforts. Chairman Ramil gave his congratulations to Ms. Prevatt for her work. This year eleven members of the faculty and staff made commitments of $1,000 or above as opposed to two President’s Council gifts last year. Four of this year’s contributors were first year faculty members, showing tremendous commitment by the faculty for this campus. Dr. Mercer and Dr. Murray have been extremely effective in recruiting faculty members who have a passion for where this campus needs to go and those faculty are willing to take the leadership in that. Total participation on campus rose this year over last year from 35% to 56%. Dr. Mercer indicated that if the faculty and staff invest in this campus, then the community will be more willing to do the same. As of May 30, gift commitments from the community are in excess of $169,000. Compared to last year, that is over 1500% increase in gift support. The South Lakeland Rotary Club has provided $2,000 in scholarship money for students in the Lakeland area. Publix Supermarkets Charities has provided $2,000 in scholarships for engineering students as has the Engineering Wives Club. The Bartow Community Healthcare Foundation has provided a $35,000 pledge. Gene Engle, a Foundation Board member, has organized and chairs a development committee that is working with Dr. Sistrunk to identify major gift prospects. This work continues. There is wide support for development efforts for USF Lakeland.

Chairman Ramil and Dr. Mercer congratulated Dr. Sistrunk for his efforts. Dr. Mercer indicated that having a development officer of the calibre of Dr. Sistrunk is going to help USF Lakeland achieve its goals in the future. Chairman Ramil mentioned that it might be that the buildings in the new campus master plan may need to be named and that is another opportunity for raising substantial sums of money to carry on the work of USF Lakeland in educating students in its service area. Dr. Sistrunk concurred.

Budget Report and Discussion

Josh Bresler presented the budget report and indicated that the carry forward balance as of June 30, 2003 should be about $540,000 or more. Mr. Bresler had printed updates to the report that the Board members had already reviewed and requested permission to distribute this document. Permission was given and discussions continued. USF Lakeland does not anticipate a large increase in budget allocation over last year but will have funding to continue to support programs and hire needed faculty. Dr. Mercer indicated that with last year’s funding, 4 modular buildings were constructed and occupied, $500,000 was used to upgrade technology, and faculty received support requested. Dr. Mercer and Mr. Ramil congratulated Mr. Bresler for managing last year’s funds to enable USF Lakeland to meet the needs of the campus. Board member Carole Philipson asked what the tuition increase was going to be and Mr. Ramil indicated that on June 19 the UBOT met and authorized an 8.5% across the board tuition increase as prescribed by the legislature. The UBOT had options to increase undergraduate out of state, graduate in state and graduate out of state increases and those were raised an additional 6.5%. That was based upon an impact assessment. With these increases, the university will be about $5M short of its budgeted needs for the upcoming year.

Dr. Mercer indicated that even though the legislature is not funding for growth, given the demand for more programs, the USF Lakeland campus will continue to grow its programs to meet the needs of the community. There are no plans to curtail the continued growth that we are currently enjoying, and will continue to grow enrollments. In three years we have added 1,000 new students and we look forward to continuing this trend.

Other Business

Chairman Ramil indicated that USF was allocated almost $7M for matching grants, which was the second largest allocation to Universities in the state. 200-300 faculty have been hired this last year at all campus locations and USF continues to be an attractive employer of excellent faculty.

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

Minutes taken and transcribed by Lorie Miros