At last week’s Board of Trustees meeting, board members gave preliminary approval to two capital projects, heard a detailed analysis of staffing trends at UVM compared with other institutions and received an update on UVM’s compliance with the provisions of Title IX related to sexual assault.

At the Educational Policy and Institutional Resources (EPIR) committee meeting, Sanjay Sharma, dean of the School of Business Administration, and Tom Gustafson, vice president for administration and university relations, presented a comprehensive overview, the first trustees had heard, of a major addition planned for Kalkin Hall. The project, to be financed entirely by private donations at a cost of about $11 million, would be built on the footprint currently taken up by the plaza between Kalkin and the Votey Hall.

Plans to expand Kalkin, according to Sharma, arise out of several pressing needs. The School of Business Administration is experiencing significant enrollment growth, both among undergraduates and in its new MBA and fast-growing Masters in Accountancy programs. In addition, the school’s emphasis on experiential learning for undergraduates  – in project and theme-based work, in networking events with alumni and in an ever growing number of case competitions -- has overwhelmed Kalkin’s capacity, with events spread around campus and in Burlington. 

“We are focusing on academic goals of increasing selectivity and distinctiveness,” Sharma said. “Having a world class facility” is an important part of achieving those goals, he said. The program has a successful track record to build on, he added, with 70 percent of students now doing internships and 94 percent receiving job offers within three months of graduation and another two percent going to graduate school.

Trustees heard an update on another capital project, the Billings Library, from Gustafson, who described it as “without a doubt the most architecturally significant building on campus," and capital planning and management director Bob Vaughan. 

The Billings renovation, trustees heard, will be home to UVM Library’s Special Collections, the Holocaust Center, the Center for the Humanities and the Center for Research on Vermont. The $8.5 million projecct is also being privately funded; nearly all its financing is in place. 

Vaughan said the renovation will be undertaken in two phases. Phase I, addressing the historic third floor and the mezzanine, where the three centers will be located, will begin in August 2015 with a complete date of February 2016. Phase II, which will launch the summer of 2017 and be completed the following summer, will focus on Cook Commons, converting the dining hall to an area that would store Special Collections' holdings, provide office space for staff and house the Center for Digital Initiatives.

The EPIR committee approved the educational and programmatic elements of both projects. The Budget and Finance Committee (BFI) authorized the initiation of the schematic design phase of the Billings renovation at a cost of $200,000. The Kalkin addition will come before BFI once it has secured 50 percent of its private funding. 

At the Committee of the Whole, John Ryan, director of institutional research, summarized a detailed report his office had compiled on employment trends at UVM and presented information comparing UVM’s staffing to other, comparable universities. Wanda Heading-Grant, vice president for human resources, diversity and multi-cultural affairs, and Gary Derr, vice president for executive operations, also contributed to the presentation.

One of the report’s key conclusions was that, per 1,000 students, UVM has less than half the number of full-time-equivalent managers (8.3) than the median for research universities in the U.S. (17.6). UVM’s faculty-student ratio of 16-1 is also less than the average of 18-1 for public research universities. The report was based on data culled from the U.S. Department of Education’s Integrated Post-Secondary Education Data System.

Trustees also heard an overview of UVM’s response to the U.S. Department of Education’s recent clarification of Title’s IX’s prohibition of sex discrimination and harassment, which it expanded to include all forms of sexual violence. Annie Stevens, vice provost for student affairs, and Jennifer Papillo, assistant general counsel, presented information in several key areas: staffing, training and education programs, policies and procedures for reporting sexual violence, and efforts to monitor the campus climate.

Mid-Friday morning, a demonstration took place on the fourth floor of the Davis Center, where the board meeting was taking place. Protesters included faculty and staff critical of some of the university’s policies and strategic priorities and a student group opposed to the board's decision not to divest from fossil fuels in UVM’s endowment portfolio. 

The following presentations and actions took place in the meetings of the smaller committees: 

BFI

  • Committee members passed a resolution establishing tuition rates for summer session. Summer session rates for 2015 were set at $414 per credit hour for in-state students and $1,046 per credit hour for out-of-state students. Rates were kept 30 percent lower than the cost of tuition during the regular academic year after a similar reduction last summer produced an 18 percent increase in enrollment by non-Vermonters.
  • Changes were approved to the Energy Efficiency Revolving Loan Fund to eliminate the internal interest and loan loss provisions.
  • Committee members discussed ways to reduce the university’s deferred maintenance backlog of about $320 million beyond its current FY 2015 commitment of $9 million. The proposed STEM project and Chittenden-Buckham-Wills dormitories demolition are expected to reduce the backlog by $36 million.
  • A report by the Investment subcommittee showed that the university’s endowment was up 4.8 percent and had reached a record high of $448 million at the end of August 2014. A decision to shift the portfolio slightly in August by moving $9 million out of equity investment contributed to the positive overall performance.

EPIR

  • Vice President for Research Richard Galbraith shared the university’s plans for diversifying the sources of research funding faculty receive, as federal agencies and the states reduce their support. Galbraith said the share of support for UVM research coming from industry was lower than the national average for comparable universities and said plans were in process to partner with the UVM Foundation to garner more corporate support.
  • UVM Foundation president Rich Bundy gave a brief fundraising report. Last fiscal year, the foundation received more than $55 million in funds committed and over $37 million in receipts, both record numbers. Bundy said faculty in the Department of Surgery had contributed a combined $4.5 million to support endowed faculty, bringing the number of endowed faculty positions at UVM to 88, up from 53 when President Tom Sullivan took office. Sullivan has a stated goal of doubling the number of endowed faculty at UVM during his tenure. 
  • In a update presentation on the Career Success Action Plan, associate provost Annie Stevens and Career Services director Pamela Gardner spoke of the need to gather more robust data on the success UVM students achieve after graduating, a key marketing theme in the university’s recruitment efforts. To supplement data currently collected via a survey of recent graduates, which has a low response rate, the university plans to pool outcomes information on recent alumni received from deans, chairs and faculty. Students most commonly come to faculty with news of their post-graduate plans. “We need these numbers to show how successful our graduates are and where they’re going,” said Stevens. 

The complete consent agenda for the May board meeting is available here: http://www.uvm.edu/trustees/standing_com/full_board/meetings/2014_oct18consentagenda.pdf

PUBLISHED

10-22-2014
University Communications