Trustees agenda to include housing, fundraising, more

These include student housing, student misconduct, faculty views on the athletics budget, and the university's current major fundraising campaign.

During a joint meeting of the board's Resources and Academics committees, the Board of Trustees will hear an update from a consulting firm on the "master plan" for student housing, as well as a status report from the OU Advancement Office on its $450 million capital campaign.

Also on the agenda is a report on the last four years worth of student disciplinary cases taken before Judiciaries, and a report from Faculty Senate chair Joseph McLaughlin.

ON THE ISSUE of student housing, representatives of Brailsford & Dunlavey, a facility-planning and program-management firm, will offer a report on an effort to update OU's master housing plan, completed in 2006.

At an April meeting, administrators presented the board with multiple options to pay for planned improvements to the South Green residence halls. At that time, the trustees indicated they didn't want to attack the student-housing problem piecemeal, but wanted a comprehensive plan for renovating or replacing all on-campus housing.

At a June meeting, Brailsford & Dunlavey told the board that renovating all OU dorms would cost around $412 million though Trustee Chair Marnette Perry stressed to reporters that this was a very rough estimate with many assumptions built in.

The consultants suggested that to keep abreast of market trends and student demand, OU might consider replacing at least some traditional dorm-style housing with suite-style apartments equipped with private bathrooms.

They floated two scenarios: First, renovating older dorm rooms and building new housing to bring the bed mix up to at least 30 percent suite-style apartments, at an estimated cost of $469 million; second, keeping the existing bed mix but renovating the 88 percent of rooms that haven't had an upgrade since 2001, at an estimated cost of $412 million.

The material in the latest board agenda includes a survey of local occupancy rates and rent levels in the private student housing market, and assessments of what students and their parents want in student housing.

Average local monthly rents per student, the consultants found, ranged from $490 for a two- or four-bedroom apartment, to $740 for a one-bedroom; in houses, they ranged from $400 to $500, depending on the number of bedrooms. With utilities, average monthly apartment costs are $570, the survey found only slightly cheaper than the $592 cost of a standard double dorm room on campus.

The local student housing stock has 90 percent occupancy, the survey found, though that goes up to 98 percent within a mile of campus, and drops to 80 percent outside that radius.

In a survey of nearly 3,200 students and more than 2,000 parents, the consultants found that if OU built new housing, the most important physical features to both students and their parents would be in-room wi-fi Internet access and convenience of location.

The surveys also suggest that while OU, which requires non-local, non-commuting freshman and sophomores to live in dorms, won't capture any more of that market by building new housing, it might entice considerably more juniors and seniors into on-campus housing that was priced competitively.

REGARDING THE CURRENT capital campaign (dubbed "The Promise Lives"), material from the Advancement Office reveals that the campaign steering committee and the Board of Trustees have suggested a tentative goal of $450 million.

According to the most recent figures cited in the agenda material, the campaign has raised more than $214 million already, with most more than $151 million coming from alumni.

The campaign is slated to run through June 30, 2015.

A SCHEDULED PRESENTATION BYFaculty Senate Chair Joseph McLaughlin includes reports on resolutions by that body on faculty pay and the varsity athletics budget.

Regarding faculty pay, the report notes that OU has seen a "significant decline" in Fiscal Year 2010 salary rankings as reported by the American Assocation of University Professors (AAUP), and adds, "Anecdotal reports from others state institutions on raise pools for FY11 indicate Ohio University is more likely to lose ground in these rankings than gain it."

It also notes that salary rankings don't include increased costs to OU employees for health benefits, which have seen two "significant" bumps in the last four budget years. In FY10, the report states, OU faculty and staff saw smaller take-home pay than the year before.

During the FY10 and FY11 budget cycles, when Group I faculty pay went up by $1.6 million, according to the report, an additional $2 million in new revenue went into Intercollegiate Athletics.

Regarding athletics, Faculty Senate has set three goals: requiring greater transparency, including better ways to compare sports and academic funding; insisting that growth rates in athletics not exceed those in academic spending; and urging President Roderick McDavis "to become a leader in initiating discussions and policies among MAC presidents aimed at conference-level comprehensive financial reform in Athletics."

AN UPDATE ON Judiciaries from Vice President for Student Affairs Kent Smith shows trends in student misconduct cases from the 2006-07 academic year through 2009-10.

These include a steady increase in theft offenses (25 in 2006-07, 68 in 2009-10) and a steady decrease in probation violations (389 to 212).

The annual number of Judiciaries cases dropped over the first three years, then ticked back up slightly in 2009-10; the same trend held for drug- and alcohol-related offenses.