An ordinary Board of Trustees meeting it was not.

During two lengthy executive sessions of the full board, one Friday afternoon, the other Saturday morning, trustees culminated a 10-month-long process by selecting, from among five highly accomplished finalists, the next president of the University of Vermont.

Board members, five of whom sit on the Presidential Search Committee – nearly all had met the candidates – deliberated for some four hours over the two days, then authorized chair Robert F. Cioffi, who also chaired the search committee, to begin contract negotiations with the new president over the weekend.

As momentous as the decision was, the choice of UVM’s twenty-sixth chief executive, which will be publicly announced late this month after negotiations are complete, wasn’t the only news of import at last week’s meeting.

Englesby unbound

Take the matter of where that new president will live.  

In media interviews, Cioffi said each of the five finalists had agreed to reside at Englesby House on campus – making it unnecessary for the board to require that action, which was its preference. Trustees officially authorized a budget of $875,000 to renovate the historic structure, built in 1914.

The new Englesby will be a much more livable domicile, not only because of the planned renovation, but because it will serve primarily as a residence, not as a preferred location for official university functions, which could crowd the resident family with as many as four and five events per week. The Davis Center and the planned Alumni House will take over the bulk of the ceremonial role Englesby has historically played.

Of the total renovation budget, $590,000 will go toward deferred maintenance. Big ticket items include replacing a leaky roof with a new slate one, repairing and replacing water damaged exterior wood, repairing and repointing degraded masonry, installing a new heating system and upgrading the electrical system. The remainder will be used to upgrade the living quarters, including renovating the third floor, which hasn’t been lived in since the 1980s.

Deferred maintenance costs will be covered by UVM’s general fund; the living quarter upgrade will be financed by private gifts.

The project was scaled back from a $2 million initial estimate, which included extensive landscaping and installation of a drainage system to divert water away from the house.

As is, upgrades to a sump pump system in the basement and other fixes “mitigate” but don’t “entirely solve” water problems, Richard Cate, UVM’s vice president for finance and administration, told trustees. Englesby shares its wet basement issues with many other homes in Vermont, Cate added as consolation. The university may address the larger issues at some future date, he said.

Mixed climate

During the Educational Policy and Institutional Resources Committee meeting, Wanda Heading-Grant, chief diversity officer and special assistant to the president for multicultural initiatives, presented trustees with the broadly positive results of a Campus Climate Survey conducted in the spring of 2011.

Overall the survey reflected a high degree of satisfaction and sense of the university as an inclusive place to work and study, with 78 percent of faculty, 84 percent of staff and 86 percent of students reporting they were satisfied with their UVM experience. Students were especially upbeat, saying they feel a sense of respect from other students (90 percent), faculty (93 percent) and staff (92 percent).

But there were also areas of concern, said Heading-Grant. Smaller majorities – 63 percent of faculty and 67 percent of staff – feel that senior administrators treat them with respect. While very few reported having been sexually harassed in the past year, a large minority of faculty, staff and students said they had experienced bias and/or discrimination during their time at UVM. A large minority (one-third to one-half) of faculty, staff and students reported having observed or experienced discriminatory or disparaging remarks. Though still rare events, faculty and staff of color and LGBT and are twice as likely to report having experienced sexual harassment or bias than their peers.

To confront the issues raised by the survey, Heading-Grant made a number of recommendations, including conducting focus groups with those who reported negative or contradictory experiences, professional development and training and benchmarking our survey results against diversity initiatives and results at other institutions. She called for immediately establishing a working group of experts, scholars and key university officials to develop a three-year assessment plan by May 2012.

Provost Jane Knodell agreed that focus groups could help determine the nature of the problem, whether the issue is civility on campus or true bias incidents. In either event, she said, change “starts at the top.”

Budget balance

In the Budget, Finance and Investment Committee meeting, Vice President Cate updated committee members on the FY 2013 budget, which he anticipates will be balanced.

Committee members agreed on a 3.5 percent increase for a traditional double room, a four percent increase in the predominant meal plan and a 2.3 percent increases in student fees.
    
Working on a previously agreed budget assumption that tuition would not exceed 3.5 percent, committee members discussed tuition scenarios, but won’t set a rate until the May board meeting.

Ted Winfield, associate vice president for budget and resource management, discussed peer comparison charts showing the university’s tuition increases over a 10-year period. UVM fared well against its private counterparts as well as its public peers with an average tuition increase of 5.5 percent, finishing behind the University of Wisconsin (4.8 percent) and SUNY Albany and SUNY Binghamton (5.4 percent). The 17 other institutions on the chart, including New England’s five other flagship institutions, experienced increases of between 6.0 and 11.5 percent.

In his report to the board, Interim President John Bramley addressed the challenging economy and its impact on UVM and all of higher education. To survive in the new order, Bramley said, UVM must implement new learning models, reach out to new demographics, expand research, create an entrepreneurial environment that will attract private investors and closely align the university with the needs of the economy.

“This university has an opportunity to dramatically increase its positive impacts in Vermont, and fortunately the administration in Montpelier is recognizing how essential we are to the future health of this state,” Bramley said.

In other news:
Provost Knodell updated the board on the Strategic Initiatives Program (SIP), a multi-faceted initiative that will enable the university to target strategic areas for investment, based on its Strategic Plan, and secure funds for implementation. All of the three investment-oriented groups within the SIP – Transdisciplinary Research Initiative (TRI) and Research, Diversity and Internationalization, and Student Success and Satisfaction/General Education – have developed detailed proposals that will be shared with the campus community during the spring semester. The Net Revenue Generation team is moving two proposals forward toward initial implementation:  a distance education program targeting masters degree programs in four areas and a program to increase international enrollment. The Cost Structure and Productivity Improvement team is continuing its work and will have a proposal for the SIP team to review in March. The UVM community will have the opportunity to share feedback on the investment proposals as part of a campus comment process that will include governance groups. In addition to the investment proposals, community members will be able to weigh in on the Cost Structure and Productivity Improvement proposals and the adoption of the strategic value criteria that will shape reforms in the academic program. The outcome will be a prioritized list of recommended investments, accompanied by a funding plan, by the May board meeting for the new president’s consideration.  

Knodell also briefed the board on exploratory activities related to increasing international enrollment on campus, at both the graduate and undergraduate levels. Various internationalization campus work groups have identified the essential components of a successful strategy for UVM (a reasonable level of international enrollment, the expertise of a third party, an internal transitional/preparatory pathway program and appropriate internal infrastructure), and have identified two courses of action that include all of the essential components, both of which will require partnerships -- at some level -- with one or more external organizations. The board has affirmed its support of increasing international enrollment on campus in the past, and expressed continued support along with a desire to learn more about how UVM will position itself in the international marketplace.

Domenico Grasso, vice president for research and dean of the Graduate College, announced the consolidation of five doctorate programs from within the College of Medicine into a single doctorate program. A name change request to Cellular, Molecular and Biomedical sciences will go before the board in the spring. The college is now recruiting for the new program, though current students will continue to graduate in their previously designated fields. With strategic reallocation of funds from with the College of Medicine, the Graduate College and the College of Agriculture, the program is expected to grow and gain national recognition within a few years.

The board approved the creation of a cross-college master of science in food systems.
 
The board approved a resolution naming the new athletics field, opened in October 2011, “The Frank H. Livak ’41 Track and Field Facility,” in recognition of his generous gift making the construction possible.

The board was also briefed on the university’s net assets, which have grown from $126.2 million at the end of FY 2009 to $146.2 million at end of FY 2010 and to $162.6 million at the end of FY 2011.

Read a PDF of the consent agenda, itemizing all action items approved by the board.