Tennessee Tech University Board of Trustees Meeting - Committee Meetings - March 7, 2024

Wilmore and Trustee Dorris. Just take it while he's not looking. Test I'll ask everyone to take their seats, and we're just going to wait on one more person or two. Good morning, everyone. Are we good to go from the folks in the back ? Thank you. All right, I will call to order the executive committee meeting of the Tennessee Tech Board of Trustees, and I'll ask the Secretary to call the roll. ≫: Trustee Lowery? ≫: Here. ≫: Yes. Can you simultaneously hear and speak to the committee m

embers? ≫: Yes, I can. ≫: Please identify any persons present with you. ≫: There's no one with me. ≫: And confirm that you received the committee materials in advance of the meeting . ≫: Yes, I did. ≫: All right. Thank you, sir. Trustee Rose? Trustee Harper? We have a quorum. ≫: Thank you, Mr. Secretary. I'd now entertain the, um, you should have a copy of the minutes from our November 30th, 2023 meeting, and I'd entertain a motion with respect to the minutes. ≫: I'll move that we

accept, approve the minutes for the November meeting. ≫: Thank you. Is there a second? ≫: Second. ≫: Thank you, Mr. Lowery. Is there any discussion? Hearing none, we'll take a roll call vote. ≫: Trustee Lowery? ≫: I. ≫: Trustee Rose? ≫: I. ≫: Trustee Harper? ≫: I. ≫: Motion carries. ≫: Thank you. Now, I get to do something very fun that I haven't gotten to do very many times in my role as Chairman, and that is I get to introduce a new trustee. We have, um, many of you may h

ave already met Camron rudd, but let me introduce Mr. Rudd. He's at the table, he's already been confirmed by the legislature and , um, is officially a board member now. Let me tell you a little bit about Camron . He is, excuse me, the Chief Operating Officer for Herman North America, and I'm going to let him pronounce Herman in a German way, because I'm only doing the, I've got the possum creek German, so, forgive me for that, but Herman North America is a family-owned entry system

s manufacturer headquartered in nearby Sparta, Tennessee. Camron lives here in Cookeville though, and he's held progressively responsible positions within his company since started as the engineering department manager in 2005. Mr. Rudd is a 2005 graduate of Tennessee Tech, holding degrees in, both, mechanical engineering and foreign languages with a concentration in German, which is very good, so he can pronounce Herman properly. He serves on the Board of Directors for the cou

nty Chamber of Commerce. We know other people who do that, so, that's very good, and he was the 2021 recipient of Tech's outstanding young alumnus award. Mr. Rudd and his wife, Miranda, also a Tech alum, live in Cookeville with their two children , and I just learned this morning that Mr. Rudd's son, Harrison, is a very appropriate electrical engineering major at Tennessee Tech, the best major, of course, so, we're very glad he's here. Mr. Rudd has been appointed, I have appointed

Mr. Rudd to serve on the, um, academic and student affairs committee, alongside the esteemed, um, Chair ruDonna Rose and Barry Wilmore and, um, and I think you will enjoy that. Excuse me, and Addison Dorris. I'm sorry, Trustee, Dorris, I almost forgot the most important one. Trustee Luna, I am so sorry, I've left everybody out this morning. This whole side of the table, I guess, is just suspect. I'm sorry. Sorry about that. Thank you all. I thought to myself, I need to mention th

e other members of the committee and, then, completely forgot them. Anyway, we're very glad you're here. Would you like to say a couple words? ≫: No. (Laughing. ) ≫: I didn't ask him ahead of time. ≫: No, that's fine. No, I'm ecstatic to be here. I really appreciate the opportunity that was afforded to me by the governor and, of course, by the, that's a very appropriate ring tone, I think, but anyway, um, happy to be here, delighted to be here. Hope we can do some, um, do some great

things for Tennessee Tech, and I'm looking forward to it. ≫: When you said no, Phil said you were going to be a great trustee, so . (Laughing. ) ≫: That's terrific. All right, so, I think I just made this announcement, but I need to officially announce the membership of the academic and student affairs committee , which I think I have just done. Is that, should I read them all off again, or do I risk getting it wrong? ≫: I think let's go with your first try. (Laughing. ) ≫: Since it w

as so bad. Thank you all. Sorry again, Dr. Luna and Ms. Dorris. I apologize. All right, um, our next order of business for the executive committee is to discuss the President's performance review, annual performance review, and where'll just remind everyone that the executive committee of the board is responsible for organizing and conducting an annual performance review of the President and, as part of that responsibility, the committee needs to approve three things; a schedule for

the completion of the process, a board assessment questionnaire, and a cabinet assessment questionnaire and, then, we need to discuss any other matters that we need to, that we believe are required to, um, be discussed. So, before I go into that, let me just point out that I have the right, under the, um, is it a policy, Lee ? The other governance document, the one that says I can appoint an executive committee representative, is that a policy? Bylaw? Thank you. I didn't want to say

the wrong thing. Under our bylaws, I can appoint an executive committee representative to handle this review and, in the past, that has been, um, the Vice Chair, and I have asked Ms. Rose to, um, take that role, and she has agreed, I believe. I asked her through Secretary Wray, but I believe she has accepted , is that right? Thank you. She did a tremendous job last time, and we appreciate that. It's a big job, to take that on, but it's also a really interesting one, because when I g

ot to do this several years ago as Vice Chair, I felt like I learned more about the President 's job than I would have ever known before. Do you agree with that? Good. So, Ms. Rose will be the executive committee representative. So, we just need to look, then, at the, um, at the schedule for completion of the executive committee evaluation of the President, and that's in, that's on section 5. 2 of board books . Hopefully, all the members of the executive committee at least have t

hat and anyone else on the board. If you will take a look at that and, Ms. Rose, the most, and President Oldham, the most important two people in this process are you two, looking at this and saying this is going to work for you. Do you still agree, that this works for you, Ms. Rose and President Oldham? ≫: Yes, ma'am, it works for me. In fact, at the appropriate time, I'll make a motion about it. ≫: That's terrific. Thank you. So, um, I'll let you go ahead and do that, if you don

't mind. ≫: Okay. Thank you, Chairman Harper. I move that we approve this schedule as presented for the completion of the President's performance review process. ≫: Thank you. Is there a second? ≫: I second. ≫: Thank you, Mr. Lowery. Is there any discussion about the, um, schedule ? Hearing none, we'll take a roll call vote. ≫: Trustee Lowery? ≫: I. ≫: Trustee Rose? ≫: I. ≫: Trustee Harper? ≫: I. ≫: Motion carries. ≫: Thank you, and the schedule isn't up on our screen here,

but those of you that have board books can see it, but we will finish by the September board meeting. Um, this has the, um, let me see, the surveys go out, I'm looking to see when the board will need to do their surveys, um, by July 29th, so, it's, basically , July, you'll be asked to, um, complete the survey about the President, and that's, both, the board and the cabinet, and I think we meet one more time before all of this goes, becomes final, but I just want to say, this is one of

the most important things we do as board members, and I strongly encourage you, I beg with you, I plead with you to take this very seriously and to spend some time on it, because I have found these kinds of surveys that we do of our board and our cabinet to be the most informative and instructive things that we do outside of our meetings. So, just ask you one more time to do that. So, the next two items are the approval of the board and cabinet assessment questionnaires , and each of t

hose have been derived from the President's fiscal year 24 goals, and they include general questions related to things like leadership, Alumni Relations, um, legislative relations, etc. , but, again, they are targeted specifically to the president's goals that he set and we set in our, together in our last review of him . So, hopefully, we'll be reviewing how he did on those . Hopefully, you've all had a chance to review those and, while I'm asking for comments from executive committee

members, I'll just remind everyone that anyone is welcome to offer comments on any of these topics, if you have them. So, I'd entertain a motion with respect to the approval of the board, can I do both questionnaires? Okay, both questionnaires. ≫: I move that we send the board assessment questions to the board members and to the President's cabinet for their assessment of the President's performance. ≫: And let me just clarify that, because it's a board assessment and the cabinet asse

ssment is separate, so you'll, your motion covers both of these two? ≫: Yes, ma'am. ≫: Thank you. Is there a second? ≫: Second. ≫: Thank you, Mr. Lowery. Is there any discussion ? Hearing none, I will ask for a roll call vote. ≫: Trustee Lowery? ≫: I. ≫: Trustee Rose? ≫: I. ≫: Trustee Harper? ≫: I. ≫: Motion carries. ≫: Thank you very much. I think that includes the business of the executive meeting. Mr. Secretary, do you know of anything else we need to cover? ≫: That's i

t, Madam Chair. ≫: All right, I will call us adjourned, and thank you all very much, and I will turn over the, um, podium to Ms. Rose to conduct the academic and student affairs committee meeting. Hopefully, you know who your members are, since I couldn't seem to get those right this morning. ≫: Yes, ma'am, and if you'll give me just a moment, I've misplaced my notes on getting started. Okay, very good . Okay, um, I'll call the meeting to order and, um, Secretary Wray, could you call

the roll , please? ≫: Trustee Luna? ≫: Here. ≫: Trustee Wilmore? ≫: Here. ≫: Trustee rudd? ≫: Here. ≫: Trustee Dorris? ≫: Here. ≫: Trustee Rose? ≫: Here. Very good. ≫: You have a quorum. ≫: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate it. So, you all should find in your packets your minutes from the November 30th meeting and, um, I hope you've had an opportunity to look at those minutes, and I would entertain a motion for approval of the minutes or any suggested changes . ≫: I mot

ion we approve as written . ≫: Seconded. ≫: Okay. It's been properly moved and seconded. All those, well, let's see, let's get a roll call . ≫: You may take a voice vote. ≫: I can take a voice vote? All those in favor, say I. (Saying I. ) ≫: Any opposed? Okay, the minutes are accepted. Very good. So, our first, um, presenter today is Karen Lykins, and she's going to give us an enrollment update for the semester, which is, I think, something we always look forward to and always go

od information and, so, Karen Lykins, welcome. Good morning. ≫: Thank you. Good morning, and Trustee rudd, wings up this morning. That's your first wings up . All right, well, in my role as a crisis communicator, when something's going on, people look over at me, like, how is she feeling? Because that's how I might be feeling right now during a crisis. So, I, kind of, feel like this role is the same. In enrollment, how is Karen feeling? So, I'm going to tell you how I'm feeling t

his morning , but more importantly, I'm going to tell you why I'm feeling that way. Three words describe it; encouraged, challenged , and motivated . Okay, let's look at the early freshman enrollment indicators for this coming fall. We just had two fabulous events on campus, spring showcase. Spring showcase is an exclusive event for admitted students, they bring their parents, we had 1500 last Saturday here. In total, we had, um, 1033 students, and we know that 78 percent of those w

ho come to spring showcase will come back to us in the fall and enroll. So, that's a good, solid number in line with previous years. Our housing applications for new first- time freshmen are also an indicator. We opened those last October and, this year, freshmen are guaranteed, um, a room in the residence hall, as long as they apply by May 1st. Applications this year are at 1060 as of , um, Monday, and that is about 50 over, um, our last year's numbers, so that is encouraging , that mo

re freshmen are already signing up for their housing, and we know that 82 percent of housing applicants, um, actually come and enroll for the fall. The next big event and the truly big indicator of freshmen enrollment in the fall is SOAR registration. We've already started advertising that. The registration will open up after spring break on March 19th and, if we get them to SOAR, 96 percent of them, it's crazy how consistent that number is, but 96 percent of them will enroll for the

fall. So, we will have a pretty good look at our class after, um, SOAR registration is complete. Here's a number I think you'll like. This is new domestic freshman only fall applications. We're at 9300 applications. We've never been at 9300 applications before. That's another all-time record. You can see the year-to-date numbers, you can see the very , very similar trajectory, um, of how applications come in. So, we are up 1350 over last year. Let me say a couple of things about this

number, just to put it in perspective. We do know that our colleagues in the UT system and the LGIs are all seeing increased applications. We did our own survey of freshmen who did not come to campus last year, were admitted but weren't enrolled, and we found that they applied , um, anywhere from four to six schools. That used to be one to three, okay? People just didn't fill out multiple applications, and we know, nationally, that number can be even a little bit higher, six to eig

ht. So, people are doing a lot more cross-applications and filling them out, so, our job is to decide whose first choice are we, whose second choice are we. The applications that we can, um, can really influence and, kind of, parse some of those out, because we know that that's a big number. Also, if you've noticed in the news about the FASFA, which is the federal form that families fill out for financial need that we use to award needs- based scholarships, that has been delayed, sign

ificantly delayed. So, all of these applicants do not know what kind of awards they're going to have. So, there's a little bit of a waiting period, a hesitation, because their families don't know what that looks like until FASFAs are processed, get to the schools. We're hoping to have ours in about a week, ten days , but we have to wait for those to be released to us and, then, start processing them. So, that influences that just a bit . ≫: Is that what you mean by significantly delaye

d? A week or so? Week and a half? ≫: Oh, no. The federal government did not release, it's usually released and we start , like, in November. ≫: Right. ≫: And they gave a couple of deadlines, then it, they moved it to January and, then, it, kind of, worked , some people could get in. So, months. Months. ≫: Months from now? ≫: No. Months, normally, we would have had them in the fall. They open in the fall, you push everybody, and this is at every university, this is from a feder

al level. So, right. So, you could have known in December, possibly, what Tennessee Tech was going to offer you on a needs base. You still don't know, and you probably won't know until April. ≫: April? ≫: Mm-hmm. April, yes. Does that help? ≫: Do they know about a presidential scholarship or, maybe, um, departmental scholarships, things that are academic or other kind of related? ≫: Yes. Presidential scholarships are not affected, because they're not need-based . So, we starte

d awarding those as soon as we got applications in. Departments can also award, if they don't have that need-based component , or our scholarship director worked with them, um, if they wanted to consider need, you can use some proxies for that. Maybe, um, rural locations, um, you know, something else that you have information-wise that might indicate that they would have financial need. We just can't award, I think there's about 160 departmentals that we can't award, um, because we don't

have that information yet . Okay, here's a look at the presidential scholars program , and just to review, this is the third year that we have awarded presidential scholars. We've changed it a little bit every year, so, comparisons are, you just have to look closely and make sure that you see what the differences are. The first year, we had three levels, 3,000, 4,000, and 5,000, and you see the associated, um, requirements for those. They don't even have to fill out a scholarship appli

cation, if their app comes in with these numbers, they are immediately rewarded. We saw great success that first year . You see most of our recipients fell in that $4,000 range. The next year, we wanted to change the conversation and get in the conversation with the 36 and 35 ACT scores. So, we added two levels, and you can see, we had some success last year. We did land five national merit semi- finalists last year, and that really helped, because they're always in that category and

, then, you'll see, this year, lots of success at that 35 ACT score. So, that's working, that's keeping us in the conversation, and I don't think we were having as many students apply before at that, kind of, academic level. So, you can see, we've stepped up, um, last year from 2856 to 2926 this year and, of course, we don't know who enrolls until the fall. Now, what you see at the bottom is the secondary deadline for presidential scholars, and this is brand new. We've recently wri

tten stories, rolled this out, we rolled it out at spring showcase, but it is part of the answer to, if you do not know yet about your FASFA and where that lands you, Tennessee Tech will offer you a presidential scholar, just at a reduced amount. So, if you just missed the deadline, you just missed it or you decided to come to Tech late, as long as you apply by August 1st, if you meet the criteria, we will go back and give you a presidential scholarship, and we've already started awardin

g those, and that was very good news to parents who might not have expected, thinking they had missed the December 15th deadline. Okay, and here's your admits off of those applications. So, 72, 78 is where we are. You'll see two little glitches in the trajectory this year , and one was where we implemented a new enrollment management platform , our customer relations platform software. So, we had to take one down, put one up, so, that caused just a little bit of a glitch and, then,

we closed for snow for a week up there at the top, so that slowed us down a little bit, but we caught up. So, you still see the trend is exactly where it should be, and we're up 883 admits over last year . Let me tell you just a bit about that management platform, because it's been a lot of work, but it's been a lot of excitement about what we can do with slate. We now have a person dedicated to a CRM, which means we have a person dedicated to a piece of software that can tell us so much

more about students than we knew before and that we can use that information to take actions to recruit more efficiently and get to more students with the message that they need. He said our old system was, um, it's Wes Bridges, by the way, he's very talented, and he said, let me describe it this way; our old system was like somebody handed you an action figure. It's kind of cool, it's useful, but it only does so many things. Slate, our new one, is like you have a box of Legos . Takes

some more thinking, takes some more, um, training , but it is infinitely more, um, enjoyable , usable, flexible, all of those things. I know these bullets sounded like a sales pitch, but, to us, as we've implemented them, um, it's really made a difference . For instance, when we came to spring showcase, we used to have a line, because you had to process them in a certain way, had to click four times, had to give them, you know, a ticket that had a color . They walked right in the door,

I couldn't even find the registration , it was going so fast, because we used slate to do a QR code that was color-coded. Done, no lines. They got to their coffee before they even got through the building. So, that was one of our first uses. It is logic-based, so we're helping housing, um, try to find out earlier if people intend to do a housing application or if they tend not to come, that way, we have a much earlier look at, um, how to save rooms, how to distribute rooms, so, that

's been very helpful. In our transfer recruitment efforts, we're, um, measuring the efficiency of our materials, our recruitment materials, so we can see which ones are bringing in more applications. Just infinite possibilities there, and we're also piloting a program with the College of Education that will tie exactly how we met the students, so we will always know what their first touch was, if it was a campus visit or a college fair, so that we can make some assessments about where do

we spend their time. Do we spend it in a cafeteria setting, you know, just talking to a few students? Or are we getting any students from that? Do we need to be spending our time somewhere else? So, slate has been very exciting for us. Here are the data projects that we have completed this year, and I do like to say, instead of we're going to do something, these are the things that we have done this year. We, um, reviewed and analyzed our student view survey of high school students

across Tennessee. We've had this about 17 years. This gives a great historical perspective of, um, how people perceive us. It's a perception and, um, survey, and it also gives us, um, all of our competitors across the state and how we stack up in about 20 different attributes. We also did a survey of admitted freshmen who did not come last year. Why did you not come last year? And I would be happy to share some of that information with you after the presentation, but we learned a

lot and are taking some actions on what we learned from there. For the first time, we did a complete analysis of the national student clearing-house status. So, if you participate in the national student clearing-house , you submit your data of who enrolled at your school and, in turn, you get back everybody that applied to your university, you get to see where they went. So, we can see, if they're not choosing us, where are they going and what, maybe, that tells us about how we can r

ecruit . Then, finally, we have a detailed profile of fall 2023 new freshmen. We've always had an aggregate profile. What this gives us different is a more granular level, so, it's broken down, um, we always had, like, counties they were from, what their GPAs were, but, now, it's broken down into, for instance, females. We were looking at female recruitment, so we broke it down at that level. It's broken down by race and ethnicity. It's broken down by if you live in a 50-mile radiu

s. So, a much more granular level of what those freshmen look like, so that we can look at special populations. Finally, just to know that there's results from these studies. We've got slate, better use of that, we're learning how to use that more effectively , to target communication, to collect more data and get through it and learn from it, to identify future students to target , whether they're in, um, similar type of class and type of student from what we have, or are we looking

for new markets, and that's something that we're exploring, and better service to students through families, through campus visit program. We took the survey results and understand that we need to make some tweaks to our campus visits to get more people here on campus, so, that's exactly what we've done. In summary, our goal is to have better service to these perspective and current students and to enroll as many as we can at Tennessee Tech. So, I am very encouraged of those three words

, I'm mostly encouraged, and I hope you are, and I'd be happy to take questions at this time. ≫: Thank you, Karen. Any questions or comments? ≫: I have a question. Karen, if the trend continues as it is now, will we have enough housing for these new freshmen coming in? ≫: One of the things that slate has helped us do is have much better conversations. We're meeting every two weeks with housing, yes, the answer is yes , but it's really because we're working directly with housing to le

t them know the trends and , every two weeks, we assess how many are we saving for freshmen. We will be able to house all the new freshmen that come to Tennessee Tech , yes . ≫: I feel so much smarter over here actually. As close to the engineers I'm going to get. So, if I search Tennessee Tech or enrollment, I get 10117 fall of 23. If I ask Siri, I get 8392, 2021. Um, is there some way we can get Siri to be more current? (Laughing. ) ≫: Yes, I will put someone in charge of talkin

g to Siri. Who talks to Siri? Anybody? (Laughing.) ≫: I wonder, I bet Siri's pulling, that sounds like an undergraduate number. So, 10117 is a total number, so, I bet Siri just is looking at an undergraduate number. So, she's probably accurate, but not getting to what you wanted her to answer, but we can check. ≫: I just thought if a perspective student just happened to be asking , and they say, well, what is the enrollment ? Just throwing that out. ≫: Thanks. ≫: Karen, is there

any information from the state or otherwise about, um, kind of, the leading indicators on what, on applications across the state? So, in other words, we're way up, you said everybody else is way up, everybody's applying to more schools , but do we know what the universe of students who are applying for college, do we have any idea if that's up? Because there's been all this pressure, you see, you know, things like who needs a college degree and, of course, we're combatting that, and I th

ink there's a tremendous case to be made for why you need a college degree , but do we know if we're up in the state or flat or down overall? ≫: I know that it's not driven by the population of those age groups, because we've looked at that for past, present, and future, just to, kind of, anticipate where our market, you know, where our possible markets might be, but I don't know, overall, I don't know at that level, but I do know it's not driven by, okay, there's a lot more students out

there, so , everybody's getting more. It's, kind of, the same students who are just doing more applications. ≫: Okay. You don't think it's a big increase in the, kind of, the market, the total market, it's just a market share, and there's a lot of overlap in market share ? ≫: Correct. ≫: Thank you. That's what I wanted to know. ≫: I have a quick question. So, I noticed in the data that there's a significant jump in 2023 and 2024 in the free September phase. Is that new in 2023? W

as it not free previous to that? ≫: It was not. That was an effort by, um, TSAT, so, um, quite a very strong, effective effort. They went out with kits to high school guidance counselors and said get your students to apply for as many schools as you can, and we're going to work on the universities and ask them if they'll do a free September. So, we've done it two years in a row. Prior to that, there was no free September. We might have done it for a week at one time as, like, a sp

ecial, just, push. That has really, also, altered how we look at applications. About 2,000. You get 2,000 more applications. ≫: That was my follow-up question, is there any specific data to that free September subset to know what their eventual enrollment numbers and such will be. ≫: Yes. The yield rate is lower than the typical yield rate for that month , but you have to be careful, because about 40 percent of our students enrollment in September. So, we're working diligently to l

ook at the profile of who applied in September and figure out, based on last year even, what are the characteristics of a student who is coming and one that just filled us out for the fifth application. ≫: Right. Thank you. ≫: Yeah. ≫: You probably answered this and I missed it, and I was going to pull you aside and ask you, because I didn't want to show my ignorance, but, maybe, some of the other board members don't know the answer either to this question. The FASFA that we were talk

ing about earlier, is that just for the incoming, the first time you do that, or is this something that has to go on every year? ≫: It has to go on every year. Every family and every student. ≫: That's what I thought. Okay, thank you, and you probably said that, but I missed it. ≫: I don't think I did. ≫: I'm glad you asked, because you're the father of an upcoming college student, and you need to know that . ≫: I do. ≫: I will say, though, Barry, it's not as big a deal for returning

students, because their financial aid is pretty well already determined, um, and they, kind of, understand that . It does have to be renewed, but, um, it's for incoming students and families who don't know anything about that yet, that it's a real problem. ≫: I'd be interested to hear a little bit more about the focus group and survey of the admitted students who didn't enroll at Tech, just what you found through that . ≫: I'll say a little. I don't want to say a lot in a public forum,

because there are competitors who do watch these meetings. We learned, um, I don't know how much I want to say. ≫: You don't have to. ≫: Okay, here's some things that we learned. They say they pick a college for one reason, when you ask them theoretically, hey , why did you go, you know, what's important to you about a university, financial aid, distance, all that, and you get a set of answers. When you ask them why they actually didn't come to Tennessee Tech, it's a totally different

picture, right? So, that's what we needed to know. Um, it speaks to their, um, how much they engage with the university. So, I can give you specifics about that and, kind of, how we, you know , we are responding to that . I will say, a lot of it's about how they feel. When it comes down to it, there's all the factors of paying and everything, but we know we have to get them here, so that they feel what Tennessee Tech feels like. It is an emotional choice in many cases. ≫: Karen, I

just want to commend your groups on how much work the last few years has gone into this. You know, we had preview day when it first started, now, it's a huge event. Faculty look forward to it, it's really fun. Spring showcase, right, it's coming back and , um, it has gotten easier, the things like QR codes, they text the families the day of, there's lots of people out with signs of where to go and what to do, so, thank you guys for putting all that effort in, making it easy for everyo

ne who participates . ≫: Oh, thank you for saying that, and I will say, there's an all -university recruitment committee that gets together, and we take that input and that feedback and we debrief, you know, how can we do it better next year, and do let me say that spring showcase is really focused on the academic experience . We do have student life, um, definitely represented after lunch, but what happens is all the, we divide all the students up, colleges and department take their o

wn students, and they do hands-on, they're in the labs, they're doing hands -on, today, you're in a Tech classroom, and this is what it feels like. So, faculty and staff are doing the heavy lifting, and students in those departments, and it's an amazing experience. If we can get them to spring showcase, you can usually get them hooked. So, I appreciate that. ≫: I want to commend you too and, um, I may be showing my ignorance here , but, I guess, and I apologize, if you said it and I mis

sed it, but from what I think I understand, the pool of high school graduates is shrinking and, I suspect, looking out, it's going to continue to shrink, so, y'all 's task, to recruit from a smaller pool of students, um, is going to get innocuous difficult and, I guess, to what the Chairman said, of that pool of students, the interest in going on to higher education seems to be waning a little bit. So, I would say keep up the good work, and I know the challenge is ahead of you, but, um,

with that declining population of high school graduates, just in population -wise, do we have a long-term vision of how we'll address that? ≫: Well, there's some good news there, that when we look at where we want to grow, where we should grow, um, there's some pretty dynamic areas in Tennessee. So, in in-state, I think that we have an advantage of the type of institution that we are, not that there won't be challenges, but we've looked at that pretty closely and looked at the growth pro

jections for that age group, and I think we will be able, if we stay focused on where we know we can be successful or should be successful , we'll be fine during what others would, you know, say is a cliff coming. Nationally, I think that's an issue, but, with us, we just need to keep focused and use the information that we have. ≫: That's good. I like good news. Any other comments or questions? ≫: Real quick, one more. So, do we have a database of all the job demands that are out t

here , so that we have the academics to fulfill those, um, requirements? Can we go out and say there's a need for computer security people or something, and Tennessee Tech has this measure? There's a need for nuclear engineering, Tennessee Tech now has that? Do we have that, sort of, what kids are looking for, what people are looking for as far as jobs that are not being filled, that Tennessee Tech can help fill? ≫: Career services has a lot of good relationships with employers, so , a

t an undergraduate level, career services would have a very good look at that. There are also terrific conversations about areas like nuclear engineering, where we're connecting with industry, so we know, we can tell a student, this is exactly what type of job you're in line for and working with those training and, then, at the grad school level, they're looking at doing just that, analyzing the market to see where can we get into some of those programs that there's high demand, it would

be low cost for us to get into. So, at various different levels, from conversations to lists to just doing, you know, aggressive research on that , yes. ≫: So, do we talk to those employers too, to say we know you have a need, and this is the programs we have and, maybe, see if they can help us, um, funding-wise? ≫: Career services brings in, um, almost 200 employers when they do their biggest career fair. If that continues to grow, we're going to need some more space soon, um, and I'

ve talked to several employers lately and just asked them, how do we stack up to others in your experience here , and the personal attention they get and the personal conversations that they describe back to me makes me feel like we're doing a great job. ≫: Thank you, Karen. Any other comments or questions? ≫: One small thank you for me. The showcase was aligned with a basketball game on the first Saturday and a baseball game on the second Saturday, and I very much appreciate, as a fan,

you raising the atmosphere levels in the venues of both of those events. I think that was a stroke of genius. I very much appreciate that. ≫: Thank you. We really hope we can do that every year and try to make, we've got a year to plan that out. The Notre Dame game was unbelievable. People kept sending me, you know, photos and capturing the moment , so, I think that's part of the whole college experience. It helped, both, us from a recruiting standpoint, but, also, just to build th

at, kind of, culture. So, thank you for saying that. I'm going to ask you one favor before I leave. You've got a little purple bag there, and some of you will be familiar with what's in it. It is optional, but those are five it's personal cards. It's that time of year where I'm giving you five students, and if you could write a personal handwritten note, because every student that's admitted to this university at this time of year gets a handwritten note from someone. We've managed t

his year to engage the community, they will be having a big party at Stone Comm Radio, and a lot of our community partners are going to sit and write personal notes to students. Alumni is also engaged. So, if you'd like to do your five, you can just leave them there, we'll mail them for you . If not, someone, I assure you, will get to that student , if you just don't have the time, capacity today , but that's one way you could really help us say it's personal to our students. ≫: And th

ese are individuals considering Tech? Not that have -- ≫: They have been admitted. We're trying to get them here. So, assume your student has filled out four to six applications, and you want to say something to them and tell them why they should come here . ≫: So, I have their names, but I don't have addresses or where they're from or anything like that. ≫: Okay, we'll just, just write it to the name, because we do that. We always check them all, stuff them, proof them. ≫: I always

take mine home and mail them from my house, so, let's think about that. ≫: Okay, or we can probably share that with you. We'll see. ≫: Thank you. ≫: You can mail them to the office, if you'd want to do that. ≫: Yeah, you could do that. Any other questions? Thank you for your time today, and wings up. ≫: Thank you, Karen. We appreciate it. Next, we'll go to Provost Bruce, and she's going to introduce Dean Payne from the College of Business, and part of her Provost report today wil

l focus on the College of Business and what Dean Payne has to present. So, welcome, Provost Bruce. ≫: Thank you, Trustee Rose. Before I go into the Provost report, I did want to respond to Trustee Lynn's question and just add a little bit more detail to, um, Karen's answer. We do, um, on a routine basis, review reports that the state, um, issues on, um, industry need , job opportunities, and there's a very nice report that the state puts out that aligns, I'm going to use two acronyms, um,

SIPS and SACS. There are these SIP codes that every academic program aligns with and, then, there's codes that align with job opportunities and career opportunities in the state, open jobs and job markets and, then, we do a crosswalk of those two and look at how our academic programs are aligning with where the real job markets are, and that drives us toward looking, you know, looking at what academic programs might we be, um, expanding into or new academic offerings and, sometimes, i

t also helps us look at our current programs and how to keep them more relevant and keep them relevant and , so, that is a part that we do on the Academic Affairs side. The other, I think, answer to your question is, as a university, we've worked really hard to transition from talking about ourselves in terms of academic programs and academic departments to talking about, communicating what we are to potential students in terms of career s. So, we really communicate with students about

what career do you want, what kind of career do you want and, then, we help them find the academic home that's going to help them meet that career. So, those are, kind of, two aspects, I think, that, maybe, help answer your question. So, moving on to the Provost report, I knew we had a very, um, tight agenda today, so I'm deferring a formal Provost report, um, and, really, um, concentrating on highlighting the College of Business. As you likely recall in your most recent self -evaluat

ion, board self-evaluation, one of the recommendations that came out of that was providing an opportunity for deans to speak directly to you on, um, a routine basis. So, today, we're having our initial dean report and college highlight for the College of Business, and Dean Tom Payne is going to give you a presentation updating you. So, I'm just going to turn this over to Dean Payne . ≫: Thank you, Provost Bruce and, um, good morning, everybody. It's an honor to speak with you today a

nd provide insight into the structure, um, the organizational scope, the quality, and productivity of the College of Business. From the quantifiable success of our students to the Tech unique educational and career relevant opportunities that are provided by our faculty and staff, the state of the College of Business is strong. Our strategies align with the mission and vision of Tech Tomorrow, Rural Reimagined, and the fact that we are an essential part of Tennessee's technological univ

ersity and, while we are data-driven, um, in our decision-making, our actions are motivated by what drives the data and, in the College of Business, students always come first. Our graduates are career-ready, and they have the technical and essential skills needed to succeed , not only in their first jobs, but throughout their careers, and it is through their preparation that we also serve the companies and the organizations that hire them and the communities in which they live . My g

oal today is to demonstrate, um, that we are living our college 's vision, that, quote, as a leader in integrative experiential learning , the Tennessee Tech College of Business will engage every student in transformational learning opportunities, empowering them with the capability , creativity, and tenacity to make their world a better place . In the Tech College of Business, experiential learning is not an add-on, it's an expectation and, so, I want to give you a little bit of an ide

a of what success looks like. First, our students consistently outperform national benchmarks in the business- related technical knowledge of marketing, management, information technology, finance, accounting, international business, and economics. Analytical decision-making and emerging technologies are infused throughout every major, and learn how to learn expectations are instilled in students, so that they have the ability to adapt to new technologies and emerging business trends,

and that includes AI. Based on what employers tell us they need, we also instill and assess students' critical thinking, teamwork, and ethical decision -making skills and, of course, their communication skills and, as it turns out, the soft skills are hard. For example, we've provided grammarly premium and other software skills and tools to help improve students' communication and teamwork skills, but be assured that AI is a tool in our toolkit, to improve our performance and our probl

em-solving , but it does not make decisions for us. Our students not only have jobs after graduation , but 92 percent of them have jobs directly related to their fields of study. This indicates the relevant and the value of our courses, degrees, and learning experiences. As another indicator, several of our graduates in IT have received starting salaries above $80,000 annually, and some of our accounting internships pay $30 an hour. So, in the College of Business, we're doing our part

, um, to enhance the ROI that is provided by Tennessee Tech. It's our goal that all business students engage in resume-worthy experiential learning activities, and you see some of those, um, in your packet and on the screen, and we're building electronic portfolios to track student progress and assist our faculty and advisors as they work with each individual student, because at Tennessee Tech, it's personal, and experiential learning is not an add-on, um, it's an expectation, because w

hether in or outside the classroom, students learn best when they understand the why of what they're doing and their knowledge is stickier when it's applied . From our expected student competences to our assurance of learning processes to our continually updated curricula, all of this is part of AACSB accreditation . Now, at the university level, you're very familiar with this, and AACSB is a business -specific accreditation, somewhat similar to ABET for engineering and CAPE for educati

on. The AACSB process is about quality, reliability, and accountability. It enhances our ability to recruit and retain the best faculty. It enhances, um, also, um, the knowledge of our employers and our students, that we meet the international gold standard for learning outcomes and job placement. It also ensures that our faculty are not only highly qualified on the basis of their academic credentials and their professional experience, but that they remain current in their various fie

lds of expertise and, in terms of engagement with the business community, from our highly interactive corporate connect weeks , to collaborative projects, to our advisory boards, our stakeholders inform us about industry trends, they engage with our faculty and students, and they help develop our strategic plans . Shows you a little bit about our structure in terms of our undergraduate majors and, um, one of those, I want to speak specifically about, and this gets to Trustee Lynn's poin

t. Um, most of our majors are offered under the Bachelor of Science and business administration, and one of our newest in business information and technology includes an analytics and intelligence concentration. It has grown over 50 percent in three years, since we moved it from a concentration under management to a major in its own right, and this was a great opportunity for us. We have an amazing opportunity in this space, as a matter of fact, as business analytics, IT, and decision

science are among the fastest growing fields of study and jobs, by the way, Trustee Lynn, nationally and, at Tennessee Tech, we're in the best place, with the best people, and at the best time to meet that demand . ≫: Just real quick. I'm sorry. Two slides back, a couple of questions. Those percentages are percentages based on the number of students you have? Like, for instance, there's 10 percent of the students that are enrolled do international travel or study, is that what that's

telling us? ≫: You're talking about the 92 -- ≫: Just the chart itself. It's saying, it's got the percentage there. Is that saying 10 percent of the students study -- ≫: Oh, yes, so, it's study or international travel and, so -- ≫: And that's 10 percent of the students -- ≫: That come through. Yes, sir. And, so, just this next week, over spring break, we've got a couple trips going out, one to Ireland, I don't know how I got left out of that one, but we've got one going out to I

reland and, then, our accounting trip, um, they're going to London. ≫: Okay. The second question on the chart, it says leadership development, 25 percent . That seems low. I'm not sure what that's telling me. ≫: It's very conservative, and that's, um, I very much appreciate that question, because this is not the leadership development that takes place strictly in the classroom , these are leadership development exercises that take place beyond the classroom and, so, um, not to sell

us short, because it is well over that, if we included the classroom activities -- ≫: I'm glad I asked the question. Thanks for clarifying. I have some more questions, but you might answer them, so I'll wait till the end . ≫: Very good. All right, getting back to the graduate programs , the MBA is one of Tennessee Tech's, um, top producing graduate programs, and we continually, um, work to improve its quality, its flexibility and relevance in what has become the most competitive se

gment in higher education today . Several of you will recall, the master of accountancy was the first academic program approved by the Board of Trustees and, now , all of those students either have or graduate with jobs, and the quality of the program is evidenced by the fact that our MAcc students pass the MBA exam at a rate 35 percent higher than the overall national average . Coming up, we have a few slides , let me know if you have any questions, you'll notice there are several majo

rs that are contained with, um, within these departments, with the exception of the department of accounting that has one major contained in it, but it also includes the MAcc. Academic, um, or administrative centers, rather, and our centers that are externally funded, um, they bring in projects totaling $3. 4 million annually and provide societal impact through small business growth and projects ranging from Tennessee highway and traffic safety to diabetes prevention and fighting opioid

abuse. The centers also provide over 50 internships, um, annually and foster outstanding external relationships with our partners, and these include our small business development center partnership with the Upper Cumberland Development District. Our enrollment patterns have followed, um, generally, university and national trends. However, we have experienced a recent increase in undergraduate enrollment and, during the past five years, new freshmen enrollment in the college has i

ncreased by 40 percent, with most of that, um, that increase coming in the past two years, coincident with the initiation of the presidential scholars program . In terms of productivity, business faculty are among the most prolific in terms of their student credit hour production, and our college constantly produces between, um, 16 and 17 percent of all university graduates. You see, um, the numerical counts in front of you. At the graduate level, the College of Business produces betwe

en 18 and 22 percent of Tech's advanced degrees. All right, now, I want to give you a first-hand look at just a few of our experiential learning opportunities . This is a student advisory board, and this allows students to, um, engage directly with banking leaders. The student advisory board has recently worked with Wilson Bank and Trust to learn more about HR, um, marketing, lending, risk management, and compliance. While they also provide the bank with insights and ideas based upo

n what they've learned. In addition to their degrees, whether they be finance, marketing, or others, the students planning to enter this industry can obtain a banking certificate and have opportunities to attend conferences and professional events and, as proof of their, um, as proof that relationships matter and provide other opportunities, Dr. Nunez and her students are now partnering with a bank on a financial literacy project this year . Also, here locally, um, we're also providi

ng societal impact and working with, um, Michael and CG England that are owners of the Exceptional Bean. It's a nonprofit coffee shop. They work in teams focused on systems, networking , and development, and students digitizeed, upgraded the website, and increased the security and speed of the Internet business' Internet connectivity. Also, responding to state, national, and global workforce needs, our faculty designed and implemented a program focusing on supply chain management in

fall of 2023. Dr. Tom Timberman and Mick Williams are working with our corporate partner, Averett, to ensure our course content equips Tech students to meet current workforce needs. The program is designed, and this was, kind of, the innovative part, um, as a concentration and a minor, so that any Tech student, regardless of their major, can enter a field that, in Tennessee alone, provides over 200,000 jobs, has a projected growth rate of 8 percent annually, and salaries that average

in the 80s. Now, as most of you know, the college has relocated, um, successfully to Foundational the bottom to top renovation of Johnson Hall, which coupled with the tear-down of Foster will be a $40 million investment in our future. It's been 50 years since Johnson Hall was built, and this renovation will provide for the labs, the student and faculty collaboration spaces, and the technology needed, um, to educate the next generation of business professionals . So, on behalf of the c

ollege, I want to thank the Provost and the President and our colleagues in facilities, finance and planning, and in university advancement for making this part of our vision a reality. Finally, I want to thank our faculty, our staff, and our students, who have made the transition to Foundation Hall this year one that has brought us closer together as a college and informed our design of the new Johnson Hall. I appreciate your time, and I'm happy to answer any questions you might have.

≫: That's part of the real-life experience, is having to move buildings and people and all that , right? You do that on purpose? ≫: It is, and I think all of us have learned quite a bit in the process. ≫: You know, I just want to pause a moment and make sure everybody soaks in how much smarter you are now, hearing a presentation from the College of Business. So, um, and we feel right at home here . (Laughing. ) ≫: Okay, Trudy, top that. (Laughing. ) ≫: Won't even try. (Laughing. ) ≫

: You did answer a few of my questions, so I'm glad I paused and waited . Just a comment or, actually, maybe, a question as well, the ethical decision-making skills that you mentioned, I'm assuming that's interwoven in everything that you do. Can you comment a little bit more on that? ≫: It is, and we really start that, we have a, um, a business law course that they really begin their experience in the business college with, that coupled with accounting and economics, and they get exposed

to some of that thought process. We're not trying to make the decisions for them, we're trying to present them with scenarios that they can discuss and , then, they, it, kind of, puts them in that place of what would you do and why, you know, so that they understand the context of, kind of, working with other people and trying to come to conclusions that are fair- minded, that they're beneficial, that, you know, they, um, come together in an ethical and open way when they're working wi

th each other. ≫: Well, that's very important in society overall, so, I'm very grateful that you even brought that as part of your talking points, so, thank you for that. The second question, can you comment a little bit more about the distinguished lecture series? I'm not sure, I'm sure Chair Harper's probably spoken there, I'm guessing . (Laughing. ) ≫: No -- ≫: I'm not smart enough, because I'm only an engineer. (Laughing. ) ≫: That's what I was thinking. (Laughing. ) ≫: I thought

you were throwing me a softball. I wanted to be sure I hit it. ≫: Well, I really appreciate that, um, that question, Trustee Wilmore, because it has been one of the bright spots of just bringing community together, and we do have, and I'll open with this, is that we have a requirement, no matter how famous or how good the speaker is, they have to meet with our students, and we've lost a few because they didn't have the time to do that. So, whether it was, um, Peggy Newnen or Doris Good

win, um, they meet with our students, and those are great conversations, um, but we're very privileged, to be able to bring in these great speakers, thanks to, um, Mr. Albright and others that have, um, given generously to the college to provide these experiences, because you all know where a lot of our students are from, um, small towns and, like myself, I was the first male in my family to go to college and, you know, to be exposed to that kind of thing is a really big deal and, um, th

ey understand that they're people too and, um, our speakers really enjoy it. One brief comment about, um, Peggy Newnen is that, um, after she spoke here, and this was years later, after the college scandals, if y'all remember that, um, she wrote an article in the Wall Street Journal and, um, she called over and talked to, um, Cheryl Montgomery, and she says, I just couldn't get Tennessee Tech off my mind, and she wrote that editorial, I think you have a copy of it, but, um, that really

hit us where we live, because, um, she really enjoyed engaging with our students , and she was very impressed about how smart they are and the fact that they ask great questions and all of that. I always tell people that you cannot, um, buy publicity like a two-million circulation of the Wall Street Journal , but you can make more copies . (Laughing. ) ≫: So, just to follow-up on that, that, um, that Peggy Newnen article actually led to a lot of opportunities for the university, most no

tably, um, a one -million dollar gift from a donor that had no prior connection to Tennessee Tech whatsoever. So, you never know . Tom, could you speak, you did a good job talking about how we're preparing, um, students in the College of Business for future career opportunities, um, and I think you, sort of, hit on it a little bit, but, um, the work we're doing with Averett and, I guess, the banking industry as well, you know , the kinds of things, particularly, like, certificate progra

ms, where we're actually, maybe, giving some help to existing employees with some, in some of those industries as well. ≫: Yes, um, that's one of the things we're working on right now. President Oldham, as you know, with Averett and others, to develop training programs in modular form, um, to, and some of these will be for- credit and some can be not for credit, so that they get the skills they need , and it's very interesting. What we're finding is, yes, they need some of those technica

l skills, but what they're saying is, you know, our folks that are coming up in the organization, they really need negotiation skills , they really need those teamwork skills, conflict management, those types of things. So, we're instilling some of that in that program. So, it's been a great learning experience for us as well, as we understand more about what's important, um, to the organizations that we serve . ≫: In all seriousness, probably 80 or 90 percent of our college graduates a

re from Tech. We have some internships, and we have opportunities to get to have part-time help with that, with our operations, and it really helps us. A lot of them stay and become full-time. So, it's a great opportunity for us and, then, we get a chance to return and talk a little bit to some of the students, and it's a lot of fun to hear and see them and get their questions and see what they think about the world . So, glad for the presentation . ≫: Thank you. ≫: Dean Payne, what i

s the anticipated completion date of your new facility? ≫: What we're looking at right now is 2026, and we think it'll probably be the fall of 26. We're in those final design phases right now and, of course, these buildings, um, both Foster and, um, before the tear-down and, um, Johnson have to be abated and all of that and that site worked on a little bit and, then, we'll begin the internal construction of, um, of Johnson Hall . It's very exciting. By the way, as y'all can tell, we're m

aking a few little changes there. If you've been in Johnson Hall that had those, um, old stairways, kind of the race track around each floor, and the stairwells were bringing all those out, and we're opening up with more light , Trustee rudd, to get that into the building and, um, so, we're really excited about that part as well and just having more student collaboration spaces. It's truly transformative . ≫: Quick question. Previous speaker talked a little bit about the slate progra

m, which is great data analytics and collection for incoming students. Do we have similar data for students as they continue their career path within the university? Because, um, the basis of my question is very few business majors do I meet, do they tell me that they didn't start at, first, in engineering. I started in electrical engineering and, then, I readjusted my goals to go into the College of Business. It's a very common story, I think it's part of the history of Tech, actua

lly , so, the question is, do you have, when I look at these enrollment numbers, do you have some information of how many of these are students that have re-tooled their goals, um, to stay at Tech, but re-direct into the College of Business or how many of those came in natively from outside to study business? ≫: Yes, we do, and we'll get more folks coming in than are transitioning to another major out of the college, and I think a lot of that is due to engineering, and they, kind of, f

ind what their interests are, and a lot of those still center a great deal around technology, and I think the analytics part has really appealed to those folks who are very, they have, um, good mathematical skills, and we make sure of that. We've got a whole series of courses that every business student takes, beginning with basic statistics, they move to business statistics, then to analytics and, then , we have those courses within their majors as well. So, um, regardless of the major,

um, they transition out well , our retention is very good year on year and, um, the placement, as you've seen, is, um, very good as well. ≫: That would have been my follow-up question, because I see the business information technology, you visited my plant yesterday, we did a -- ≫: Yes, thank you for that. ≫: And, you know, I expressed to you then, we have a, one of our hardest pain points is exactly in this business information and technology sector. You know, we have a great trac

k record of getting engineers, and we have a great track record of finding, you know, more traditional business students, but folks that want to be working in that, sort of, you know , programming space, it's a little bit more difficult, to seat those positions, and I look at statistics here, and it still only ranks about fourth in your enrollment numbers, business information technology, in comparison to accounting, marketing, and business management. So, a question would be, you know

, it seems like a natural transition from the College of Engineering into that particular, um, area of study and, just curious, what you guys are trying to do or if you're trying to do anything to bolster that, to, maybe, bring it into at least the top two of student enrollment. ≫: Absolutely, and we've had lots of conversations about that very thing and, kind of, showing how students migrate, both into the College of Business or across the university, that type of thing , but you're abso

lutely right, at this pace, the, um, the information technology, business analytics and intelligence are going to overtake some of those majors fairly quickly. The trajectory is, and it's not, um, it's not a fad, it's a trend, and embedding that, some of the synergy that we get out of that is being able to embed those skills, whether they're finance majors, marketing majors and, so, a lot of times, we'll get people that will say, okay, I want to go into a particular industry, and I'm going

to pick up more, a broader set of skills that I need for that particular industry, but, every time, they include the issues that you're speaking about, people coming right out of college and, so, whether it's python, whatever they need, you know, that they're programming in or they're using those tools, whether it's tableau for visualization or any of those things, they're coming out with those skills and, um, they can go right to work, rather than, I know it's been kind of random in the p

ast, where you'll pick up a student, maybe, in computer science and some other field, might be mathematics or business and, then, you, kind of, train them for more of what you need. So, we're trying to make that more of a seamless transition and, so, that's why we're just constantly learning, um, from you and other folks, to say what do you really need. ≫: To end this on a very high note, I see you've got some of these experiential learning faculty in the audience. ≫: We do. ≫: And I

know that's so much extra work. Sorry, I hope I'm not overstepping. ≫: No, I actually was just about to ask him if he wanted to introduce his faculty. ≫: Absolutely. Live and in-person, and I don't know, Dr. Nunez, you want to introduce, um, your students? (Off mic. ) ≫: That's fantastic and, um, Mick Williams, I think, may be at Horman today, so I think he couldn't come. ≫: I was going to mention that we have, um, we actually have a capstone group doing a project at our business rig

ht now. There's three senior students, um, implementing a , actually, it's a combine system in one of our production departments. I was able to sit with them last Thursday, and they gave a preliminary presentation. I was quite impressed with how well-prepared they were and how they really understood the issues going on in that space, so, um, you know, appreciate the partnership on that. ≫: Thank you. ≫: Really quick, um, because I know we're running short on time, but would you wan

t to talk a little bit about PRL? Because that's really unique to our college, and some of the experiential learning opportunities that they provide and resources they provide for students. ≫: Oh, and thank you, Trustee, and getting back to Trustee Wilmore's comment earlier about leadership, um, because our professional readiness and leadership, um, unit that's under student success, I'm amazed at how much our folks do and, um, Sherry Canon, who leads that effort, is just fantastic, and

they have leadership programs, by the way, that , um, we had a group just get back from Disney and, um, many of you are familiar with the clothes closet that provides, um, apparel to students who may not have it and, um, and, sometimes, to deans that didn't remember to bring a jacket. So, we have all of that , and the training that they put on, sometimes, it's just as simple as business etiquette, sometimes, it is leadership training that they go through and, so, they're learning more ab

out themselves , and they are getting to work in teams, and a lot of that involves teams that are working across the university. So, thanks for the question . ≫: Dean Payne, as you're stepping away, would you mind disclosing to the board what your undergraduate major was? ≫: Yes, I will. ≫: And drop the mic as you're leaving. (Laughing. ) ≫: We can't hear you. (Laughing. ) ≫: It's electrical engineering. (Laughing. ) ≫: Okay, thank you. Thank you. (Laughing. ) ≫: But I did, um, I d

on't know, Trustee Lynn, I tell my engineering friends, I did join the dark side, finance, and I've loved every minute of it since and got to work with some great people on both sides of the aisle, so to speak. (Laughing. ) ≫: So, you're just an engineer with personality . (Laughing. ) ≫: Unless there's more questions -- (Laughing. ) ≫: Yeah, very good. Great, um, great presentation, Dean Payne . We appreciate it very much so. So, thank you. ≫: Thank you. So, ≫: Provost Bruce, we'

re going to bring you back up, because you need to talk to us about a proposed revision to policy 261. Main purpose of this is to align our policy with the changes in TTU's organizational chart. So, we'll turn it over to you. ≫: Thank you, Trustee Rose. So, um, as she stated, the next agenda item is an item that will require action. It is a proposal for revisions to policy 261, which is titled academic credit from other institutions . When you look, sometimes, you might wonder, how do

these policies even get to this point and, sometimes, they're on your agenda. Every policy has a section at the beginning that states the purpose and a second section that states review, and every policy has a review cycle and, um, some policies, it might be two years, three years, four years and, so , when it cycles through, we review the policy to determine are there any revisions that are needed at that time. If not, okay, we mark it reviewed to move on. If it requires revisions, t

hen, it starts through that shared governance process of whatever levels that policy dictates must, is required for final approval. In this particular policy, when you look at the review section, it says academic council, university assembly, and Board of Trustees . So, for this policy, we reviewed it, it required some technical , um, changes, some offices on campus had been renamed, some positions had been renamed and, so, these are fairly technical changes. The overall meaning of th

e policy has not been altered, these are technical changes and, um, they have been approved through those lower levels of shared governance through academic council and has been presented to university assembly and, now, I bring it forth to the Board of Trustees for final approval , and I'm open to any questions you might have. ≫: The policy, bullet three, sub-bullet bravo says Tennessee Tech will determine, in its sole discretion, which credits it will accept. ≫: Yes. ≫: So, I guess, my

question is who else would determine? That seems like it's, kind of, like, understood . There's nothing like, anybody else that says, so , it's just us, I would hope that would be the case . ≫: Yes. Yes. ≫: So, could you speak, this is Johnny, could you, um, speak for just a few minutes about exactly, um, what we do as an institution to verify that the TBR courses that we're accepting credit for are actually preparing the students for the next courses that they'll be taking at Tenn

essee Tech? ≫: Correct. So, when we look at, sometimes, we have people who transfer in from other institutions. It may be an institution that, it may be the very first transfer from that institution, or it might be a transfer from the community college or another institution within the state that we have a very, um, long-standing relationship with . When we know that we have repeated transfers, we enter into what are called articulation agreements, so that we approve the content once

and we don't have to keep going back and reviewing that course over and over and, then, on a, um, a ruteen basis, we go back and review those articulation agreements. So, whether it's a one-off from someone , you know, transferring here from some university in Wisconsin, it may be the first transfer in, or if it's a routine repeated transfer, when we review the course, we look at the content of that course. They have to provide what textbook they used, what, the, um, the learning outcom

es of the course. So, that institution has to provide us with a pretty detailed description of that course and, then, we map that to the content of our courses, and that mapping is done at the department level. So, let's say it's a, um, a math course that we're looking to transfer in and accept credit for, we, um, at the university level, um, we collect that information, we provide that to the math department and, then, the math faculty who teach our equivalent, what we hope is an equiv

alent course, looks at that course content, maps it to our course and, then, determines is this a legitimate transfer or not and, so, sometimes, that's done, like I said, like , one-offs and, sometimes, it's done in a way that, um, we've set an agreement, so, now, we know we're going to get a lot of transfers from that institution , and we don't have to keep going back to that fully detailed review, except when there's been a change to that course at the other institution. So, um, I ho

pe that answered your question. ≫: Dr. Bruce, um, Governor Haslymphs the one, I think, that said that we should make a much smoother transition from the community colleges to the universities when he pulled them out of TBR, and I think that's going to be more important as the emphasis in the future is to go to a community college and get a trade instead of coming to university, because there will be kids who will start there and may decide, you know what, I think I could go on and do co

llege work, but we need to be sure that all the effort they put forward is helpful to them and toward their graduation from Tennessee Tech, and whether any of the other institutions do it, I don't care . ≫: Absolutely. We have what are called program pathways that are clearly defined and, so, we partner with the community college and create a program pathway, so that they know when they're doing their two years of coursework, if they stay at the community college for two years, that t

hey know those exact courses are going to meet our prereq requirements for the second two years that they're going to do at Tennessee Tech. So, we have a, we have many what are called program pathway agreements, and it helps the community college advise their students effectively, so that they're not taking courses that, then, won't transfer and count toward the four-year degree here. So, we do actively work on those. We have a person on campus who's the program pathway coordinator and,

um, they're in, kind of, constant communication with the community colleges in the state, to make sure we have those program pathways defined and that we're following them and that the community colleges are following them . ≫: By doing that, we actually lower the cost of education to get a degree from Tennessee Tech , because, if I remember correctly, the first two years at community college is free, if you're a state of Tennessee student, is that correct? ≫: I am not an expert on the

community college tuition plans. There is the Tennessee Promise program and, so, students are able to use that at community colleges and, so, it does create a lower cost pathway for them, if they really follow a program pathway, but we do see students who go to a community college , and they do, um, you know, they take courses that, then, don't count toward, eventually count toward a degree and, so, but if a student is following a program pathway and they do two years with their Tennesse

e Promise scholarship, it can reduce the cost of their total cost of education. ≫: Do you have any idea of, um, whether that's being communicated at the community colleges for those students? ≫: Oh, yes, they are aggressively communicating that, because they want the students to come for their first two years at the community level . So, I would, I feel very confident in saying they are communicating that at the community colleges. ≫: Thank you. ≫: I have a quick question on the policy

itself. In the purpose statement, we've added a phrase, for undergraduate degrees, has that always been the case, that it's always for undergraduate degrees, and this is just to clarify? And, if so, is there a separate policy for graduate degrees? ≫: Yes, and I had the policy number written down for the graduate level one, but there are two policies, one at the undergraduate level and one for the graduate level transfer and, so, that was more for clarity, if someone comes across this

policy, they don't mistakenly assume it's for the graduate credits, but there is a separate policy for graduate transfer. ≫: Perfect. Thank you. ≫: Provost Bruce, I just wanted to comment, to go back to you, Trusty Stites. Not only, when we evaluate transfer, because as a department chair, I participate in that, we evaluate not just from community colleges, but also different institutions in the state. So, if someone starts for two years at UT and , then, they want to come and fini

sh their degree here, we try to make sure that, nobody where they're coming from, we're going to be able to count as many credits as possible. Those meetings usually involve department chairs for multiple institutions , to make sure that we're not setting up students for paying extra money and taking extra time. ≫: Thank you, Trustee Luna. ≫: I have two other questions. Bullet eight says Tennessee Tech reservesthal right to limit transfer credit in religious studies to a maximum of 12 s

emester hours, and I'm, I guess, first question is I'm curious why that is stipulated specifically. Is there something in that regime of study that warrants limiting? I'm assuming this is an elective transfer. I don't know. I don't think we have a religious degree here. If we do, I'm not aware of it. So, why is that listed that way, do you know? ≫: I believe it was historically in the policy. I would have to potentially ask Dr. Ho if she's aware of why that was originally in the

policy. I'd have to go back and research that . ≫: I guess, I would -- ≫: We do have a religious studies concentration in professional studies, so we do have a religious studies concentration in professional studies , but I do not know the historical context of why that was precisely specified, um, in the policy . This policy originally was a TBR policy that has evolved over time, so, um-- ≫: I think bullets like that, it would be nice to know what the history is on it and if it's warr

anted to remain , because it seems to specifically designate a certain, specific area and, if we want to do that for the right reasons, we need to do that , but, if we don't, I'm not sure we want it in there. Does that make sense? ≫: Yes. ≫: So, you'll let us know about that at some point? The other question, um, with respect to appeals, I'm curious, does that happen often and, um, it looks like it comes to your level, that's bullet M, the last bullet in that section about exceptions or

appeals. ≫: Yes. I, um, I have that designated to an associate Provost , um, to hear the appeals , but it is , it's not super frequent, that we get an appeal all the way up to our level on a transfer credit. ≫: Okay. I would think that would be quite, if there was a lot of work there , that, okay, good to hear. Okay, thank you. ≫: Any other questions or comments? Any others? Okay, so, as Provost Bruce said , this is a report that will require a motion, so, I would entertain a mot

ion. ≫: Maybe, I'll make the motion to accept as written, with that one caveat that we talked about in that religious studies, to get some information on it going forward. I don't know how that goes about as far as do we approve now and just, or do we not approve, I don't know how that would work, but I do think we want that information, to make sure that we don't designate something inappropriately, unless there's a reason for it. I think we want to know that. ≫: Yes, sir. So, I'm ver

y open to an amendment, friendly amendment. I mean, it's up to the -- ≫: If I can make a suggestion, I think you ought to try to approve it as it is, but with a stipulation that the Provost is going to research that and come back to us and, if we need a change, then we make the change, because I, kind of, hate to put the whole thing in limbo , but I think it's an excellent question, and I think it's a much broader question. I'll be honest with you, I looked at the red line of this,

and I completely missed that comment, so, I'm glad that you raised it, and it reminds us all to look at what's already there, but anyway, if you don't mind -- ≫: The review cycle for this policy is, I believe every , well, it's every four years , I believe, or whenever is necessary. So, what I can commit to is doing a review of that portion of the policy in the next couple of months and, if I need to bring it back for another, you know, for another revision, I'm very happy to do that,

because we can review and bring you back a policy at anytime. This was a routine review. ≫: Okay, so, we'll make that motion, as Trudy stated. Chairman Harper? ≫: As presented, you're saying, but with the understanding that the Provost is going to research that one item. ≫: Sounds good to me. ≫: Can I ask a question related to that? Just a practical question, really. You have 12 semester hours that you're limiting on this particular , um, item, right, per the policy. If you were

to transfer, let's say, 40 credit hours, would they really apply to anything? I mean, would they really even advance the student in any particular field of study ? I mean, we could transfer credits , but if they don't apply to anything -- ≫: Yes, as I read it, it says Tennessee Tech reserves the right to limit transfer credit in religious studies to a maximum of 12 semester hours . So, the way I read that is it limits the transfer of 12 credits, regardless of what they would have mappe

d to on our side. ≫: Okay. I would second the motion in the form that he had made it, um, but I would just point out that it doesn't, I'm not sure there's any real practical value in transferring a significant amount of credits. In fact, it may be more harmful to the student, if it puts some of their, you know, financial aid at risk, because they now have too many credit hours that puts them over thresholds that puts things at risk, but I'll second the motion as it's been presented . ≫

: Very good. So, we have a proper motion and a proper second to move policy 261, um, academic credit from other institutions to the board for approval , and can we say that that would be placed on the consent agenda? Are you good with that, both of you? Very good. So, it's, um, the motion and second, any questions or discussions? If not, um, Secretary Wray , will you call the roll, please? ≫: Trustee Luna? ≫: I. ≫: Trustee rudd? ≫: I. ≫: Trustee Wilmore? ≫: I. ≫: Trustee Rose

? ≫: I. ≫: Motion carries. ≫: Very good. The motion passes. Thank you. Provost Bruce, you're up again and, now, you're going to talk about the new BS degree in nuclear engineering that's been proposed by the department of mechanical engineering in the College of Engineering and the expedited letter of notification for the program that's previously been before the board. So, Provost Bruce. ≫: Yes. Thank you, Trustee Rose. Um, first, I want to start by thanking, because I'm afraid

I'll forget, if I save it till the end, but I really want to recognize and thank, um, Dean Joe Slater, the Dean of College of Engineering , Associate Dean, Dr. Yelamarthi, and Chair of Mechanical Engineering, Dr. Rou. They have done all of the heavy lifting and had a team of faculty working on this, I just have the pleasure of presenting it to the board, so, I really wanted to recognize and thank them, um, while it's on my mind. So, this is a proposal for a new degree program, Bachelor

of Science in nuclear engineering. It will be housed, if approved, in the department of mechanical engineer ing in our College of Engineering and, on March 9, 2023, so, this same March meeting last year, the letter of notification, which is the pre-proposal stage, was presented to the Board of Trustees and, here today, I'm presenting to you the full proposal for a Bachelor of Science in nuclear engineering. If the board approves this proposal , then it will be presented to the THEC Co

mmission in their upcoming Commission meeting. The proposed program in nuclear engineering aims to meet the current demand for nuclear engineers trained at the baccalaureate level, as well as to address emerging needs as Tennessee grows a nuclear development and manufacturing ecosystem. The program will require 128 credit hours , including 32 credits of math and basic science courses as required by ABET , as well as 41 credits of general education as stipulated by the university. The pr

ogram's enrollment projections are very conservative. They are projected to, um, increase from ten students in year one to 47 students in year five. On page 61 of your board book is where we detail what are the competing programs currently existing in this state. There is only one other nuclear engineering program at the baccalaureate level in the state of Tennessee, that is at UT Knoxville. They graduate ranging between 32 and 42 nuclear engineers a year , so, with the very conservativ

e enrollment estimates in this proposal, we would increase the number of nuclear engineering graduates by 25 to 33 percent, um, just in the first five years for the state of Tennessee. On page, um, 64 through 70, you'll see the letters of support from, um, a variety of engineering businesses related to nuclear engineering , including Teledine Brown Engineering. We have also entered into a very good relationship with New Core, which is a nuclear remediation company in Oakridge and, so,

we have a lot of industry support and, on page 112 are the details of the estimates of the financial projections. Tennessee Tech has, as you know, a well-established engineering programs with the associated infrastructure, thus the estimated cost to support the proposed nuclear engineering program are predominantly tied to recruiting new faculty and establishing appropriate nuclear engineering laboratories. So, there is a significant upfront cost for launching this program, and we are

very blessed to have strong federal representatives in support of our, um, congressional representatives, and we received a Department of Education congressionally-directed grant of $3 million to offset the initial costs of the upfront costs for the laboratories for this degree program. ≫: Do you know, just big-picture, what those laboratories would entail? ≫: Yes. We brought in, um, the director of nuclear engineering or, um, an endowed professor of nuclear engineering that has run

the program at Georgia Tech as a consultant, and he helped us map out exactly what equipment, what, um, simulation equipment and actual physical equipment to go into those labs and , so, that was a part of our proposal process, is bringing in an outside consultant to review what we've mapped out for curriculum, but, also, to help us map out a detailed plan of exactly what equipment will be required, and he was extremely knowledgeable and helpful and helped us even, um, create a timeline

of which equipment do you need in your first labs versus your senior labs . So, as we're standing up the labs, we can be standing them up in an order where we don't have to do everything in the first year. ≫: That's very encouraging to hear. That's great. Thank you. ≫: Provost Bruce and Chair Rose, I believe Trustee Jones has joined us . ≫: What about some of these visits to, like, nuclear reactors, is that included as well in the plan for the curriculum ? I assume we're not goin

g to have a nuclear reactor here. (Laughing. ) ≫: I feel confident there will be experiential learning, um, opportunities for the students, particularly with our partners, our strong partnership with Oakridge National Lab . ≫: That's what I figured. I didn't see it. I might have missed it. That's why I was asking. ≫: So, where in our engineering building will these labs be located? ≫: We have identified some space in the lab science building and identifying some space, I believe, in

Prescott as the Islam building comes online and the Acne building. We have a team that has been working on outlining exactly where the, you know, where the labs will be located, but I do believe part of the labs will be on some parts of the lab science building that was, when the lab science building was built, very wisely was built so that there's some unfinished laboratories that would be flexible for future opportunities, and we'll be using some of that space. So, we won't be takin

g away space that's currently being used in that building, it's space that is not used , but all of the infrastructure 's there for future opportunities and, so, some of that will be used for this. ≫: In, um, in business, you're, typically, when you're launching something new, a new product or developing a new product , you're concerned about competition, you're concerned about internal product cannibalization. So, um, one of the questions I would have is, kind of, a two-fold question

. One, there's great information here about the University of Tennessee's program. Of course, they have a long-standing relationship with TVA and, so, they have a very robust program, and it appears in their graduation rates that there's capacity within their program to take on more students. So, if I'm a 17, 18 year old student interested in going in nuclear engineering in the state of Tennessee, what's the sales pitch to get me to come to this brand new, nobody 's ever heard of progra

m versus going to this tried and true program at the University of Tennessee? That's the first part. The second part of the question would be what concerns do we have of investing all of this money and not getting a net gain of enrollment out of the process ? Instead, rather, seeing more of a re-tooling of electrical engineering students or mechanical engineering students going into this program. So, we get the results in terms of graduation rates, but we don't actually bring in the

additional enrollment necessary to cover the expenses. ≫: Both excellent questions, and the question about the cannibalization of other programs is usually, um, Trusty Stites' question, because he will ask me when I'm showing enrollment growth, is that real growth or is that just changing of majors of students that we currently have and, so, um, so, when we've launched programs in the past and we see growth , it is a combination, because, sometimes, students are excited about a new pro

gram, and they would have picked it, if we'd had it to begin with, but we do see, when we launch other new programs, an increase of, overall increase of enrollment. So, for this program , I don't doubt that there will be some early mechanical engineers or electrical engineers who will be excited and, possibly, want to, you know, change their major to nuclear engineering. We already have one student who's transferred here from another, from our friendly competitor down the highway that h

as a nuclear engineering program, but transferred here in anticipation of our nuclear engineering program. So, um, has transferred to mechanical and has clearly communicated to the department, he transferred here because he's hearing the buzz about us having a nuclear engineering program . So , obviously, we have a flagship university with a competing program, but I don't want us to underestimate our ability to cut into their market share, just as much as they have an ability to cut int

o our market share, and I would say that, I ask my question, why would somebody come here and study nuclear engineering, I think that many of the answers are the same as why they would come here and study any other engineering discipline or business or, um, you know, math. It's because, I would argue it's because they know, when they get to Tennessee Tech, we have an excellent brand, particularly when we're talking about engineering, they know they're going to get personal attention, the

y know they're not just going to be a number, and they're going to have a high return on investment. So, all the other reasons, you know, much more, um, affordable tuition than our competitor, higher starting salaries than our competitor, so, for the same reasons they would come here and study other disciplines, I believe they will come here and study this. That will be a motivating factor. The other thing that's specific to nuclear engineering, though , is that we will have all new labs

and new infrastructure and, so, I think we will have a competitive edge that, um, they will be exposed to the most, um, cutting-edge technologies in nuclear engineering because our program is new and our laboratories are new. So, I hope that helps answer your question. ≫: Yes. Yes, absolutely. I do have a, kind of, a follow-up on that. When I looked at the budgetary numbers, it, of course, in many programs, the large portion, of course, is going to be faculty, staff, etc. I would

think that one of the driving factors to get students to come here in lieu of going to the University of Tennessee would be because of the quality of the staff, that we've got, really, a brand that students are, like, I recognize this guy , he's been published, he's got a great pedigree, I'd like to study under him and, then, I see the director, um, salary is $160,000 a year . Do we feel like that is a realistic number to be able to establish that kind of cornerstone in that department

? ≫: Yes, I mean, those salaries, we came to through feasibility studies and through talking with the consultant and looking at the competing salaries in the region for someone directing a program like this. So, um, you know, if it's not, then we're going to have to, you know, go back and look at that again , but those are numbers that we came to by looking at our competitors and what they're paying . ≫: Thank you. ≫: Dr. Bruce, I did not see on, um, page 49 the timeline where you w

ould report back to the board the success of this program. ≫: I will report back to the board on the success of this program in synchronous with my annual report on all of our new programs. So, each year, I provide the board with a report on new academic programs, what were our enrollment projections, what are the realities, what were our degree projections, and what are the realities and, so, each year, when I report back to you on all of our new programs, this, if approved , this one w

ill be included in that report annually. ≫: So, only one time will we receive that report, and it would have to be in the second year, I suppose, because the first year you give us a report, do you give us one in the second year also of how that program is doing that we approved? ≫: Yes, I give you a report each year , a large table that keeps getting added to as we add new programs, and I report back to you for seven years on new programs. ≫: Thank you. ≫: Provost Bruce, I have a qu

ick question about the finances on page 112. So, because this is a new program and it's responding to a need in the state, what we've seen in the past is when we develop a program that responds to something that the state is asking for, down the road, there may be additional appropriations to help support that program, right? Is that a long-term potential goal here, to be able to say we doubled the number, we tripled the number? How would that be funded long-term ? ≫: One of the reso

urces we have available to us, and Dean Slater will, he'll take a deep breath when I say this, but the separately appropriated 3 million for engineering is designed for launching new initiatives and responding to, um, opportunities and needs that the College of Engineering faces. We've used that previously for cybersecurity, we knew there was an opportunity for growth, we knew we were having dramatically increasing enrollments in computer science , so we were able to respond to that qu

ickly, but as we've transitioned those off the 3 million, that, then, gives us a capacity to use that for, um, launching activities and initial phases of funding activities. We also are, the dean is using those funds for needs that he faces with the Islam engineering building and the Acme building. So, as there are opportunities there, he can respond to those opportunities and needs, but I anticipate using part of that to initially cover some costs and that, um, our esteemed President

and, um, government liaison will work with state legislature , hopefully, to get long-term permanent funding for the program . ≫: If I could add to, um, Camron rudd's question, I think it's a really important question about where a program like this would fit into the ongoing market and, um, I think I've shared with the board previously that, um, I was, um, I had to be convinced initially that this was the right thing to do and, really, I became convinced after meeting with industry leade

rs around the country and in the region, that there was a , what they were seeing is, really, an exponential growth need of employees in these various areas and, so, to the question about how we fit relative to our sister institution in Knoxville is a really important one and, as you indicated, you know, it's a nationally-ranked nuclear engineering program at UT Knoxville, it's an excellent program , and I don't want to, I'd be in danger, if I tried to overly characterize it, but, um, y

ou know, I think it's safe to say that it's , um, it's historic, it's, um, it's pretty traditional in its approach, and it's got a very substantial, um, market share in the existing framework, particularly in nuclear power, but the nuclear industry is becoming much bigger than power generation exclusively, and I think, no matter how good a program it is, there are areas that the program in Knoxville does not do, for any number of reasons and, so, it's really important, and I think our f

olks have done a really good job of trying to do work with industry leaders in the various sectors of nuclear , to say, okay, what are those areas that are emerging , that need academic support, um, to produce the kind of workforce of the future, um, in a variety of areas that is not really being taken care of currently and, so, really, the way this works, the way it'll work well is, if we bring something new and unique to the equation and not, simply, try to reproduce what already exists

. We have to bring something that helps expand the opportunities in marketplace and, so, I don't see this as, really, a direct competition with the program at Knoxville, it's more of, you know, what can we bring that, um, that brings something additional to the equation, and that's our challenge, but I think that's also the opportunity. I hope that helps. ≫: Is that to say that there's the expectation or the hope at least that, through partnerships with those in the private sector, that

this will help become more self-sustaining through their direct support? ≫: Yeah, so, the goal here, what we've really been trying to do is offset the initial start-up costs, back to your analogy with the start-up enterprise , to offset the start-up costs, the one-time cost over the first five years, let's say, and I think the work that's been done by the Provost and folks in College of Engineering, um, would indicate that we have every expectation that the program would be self-sustainin

g after that initial start -up period and, so, really, it's the first five years that we're concerned about and, as has already been indicated, we've already received a $3 million federal award to help with that. We've got, um, we've got more under consideration currently, um, to assist with that . We, certainly, expect more support. We will get some support, we've gotten a little bit already from industry leaders, we would anticipate more in that regard, but that's the way this is going

so far, but it's, you know, starting up any new program , just like any new business, there is a level of risk that you're accepting. In doing the analysis of this particular program, um, with all the circumstances and support that, um, seem to be in line , the risk level here is relatively modest. So, there's no guarantee of success, but I think it's a great opportunity. ≫: Thank you. And, quickly, to Trustee Wilmore's question, there is an equipment list in appendix C, and there is no

nuclear reactor in there, so, you're good. ≫: And I would say, on the aspect of thinking about what are those, um, concentrations, and it might not rise to a formal concentration, but emphasis areas in our program, we have already been in communication with the private sector on what those should look like and have been in close communications with UT Knoxville, and they have identified, helped us identify areas that, um, that are areas of need that aren't currently being met. ≫: Thank

you, Provost Bruce. We've had some good discussion, good recommendation here, but in the interest of making sure we get us back on time and, particularly, so that, um, Trustee Stites can start his meeting on time, we need to move on. So, um, we've heard the staff recommendation. I would entertain a motion. ≫: So moved. ≫: And to send it to the, um, consent agenda, is there a second? ≫: Second. ≫: Trustee Wilmore seconds. It's been properly made and seconded. Will you call the roll?

≫: Trustee Luna? ≫: I. ≫: Trustee rudd? ≫: I. ≫: Trustee Wilmore? ≫: I. ≫: Trustee Rose? ≫: I. ≫: Motion carries. ≫: Thank you, Secretary Wray and, Provost Bruce, you're up yet one more time, but this is an informational item, it will not require action, but, um, you're going to talk to us a little bit about the letter of notification for a new masters program in the child life from the . ≫: The College of Agriculture and human ecology. So, um, I really want to thank Dean Sm

ith, the Dean of the College of Agriculture and human ecology. Dr. Anderson, who's the chair and , especially, Dr. Sisk, who is a faculty member in the school of human ecology and is one of the only faculty members in the state who is a licensed child life professional. She is, um, serves on the national association of child life professionals as a research fellow, has just rolled off as President of the regional child life professional association, so, she is a huge asset to the univer

sity and, particularly, to this endeavor, and I just wanted to recognize them. As stated, this is, um, no action required , because it's that pre-proposal stage , but we have submitted to, um, THEC a letter of notification, which is the pre- proposal, um, for a new masters program in child life. The purpose of the program is to prepare professionals to serve in child life roles in healthcare . It's a practitioner's degree, it's an online, fully online degree, um, and it is proposed, it

will provide advanced content knowledge and child life clinical practice , psychosocial care of children and families, and evidence-based practice to meet the needs of credentialed child life specialists. These professionals, or the program seeks to enhance, um, the employment prospects for individuals who want to become a credentialed child life specialist and, um, it will also serve bachelors-prepared individuals pursuing child life academic preparation for professional certification as

a child life professional. The need for and the feasibility of this program is evident from the literature on the profession and, if you look, um, if you read the support letters that are on pages 198 to 208, um, they are very strong, and they are from, um, St. Jude's Children's Hospital, from Vanderbilt, from the Child Life Professional Association, the President of the national association, all stating the need and the general trend toward, um, individuals having a master's degree

in order to get placed into the clinical placements and the internships that are required in order to sit for the licensing degree. Um, so, there is currently no public institution in the state that has a master's degree in this area, we would be the first public institution. There are several bachelors programs. I would argue ours is the strongest, because we actually have licensed professional child life professionals as faculty members, but this would be the first public institutio

n to move toward a master 's degree. Um, when you look at the estimated financials, of course, this is just a pre-proposal, they're fairly modest, because, um, the goal would be to redirect some of our current resources in the school of human ecology toward this master's degree program, because we, um, we're fortunate to have a faculty member who knows the, um, national trends, and we believe we will be on the forefront of that, um, if we, eventually, launch a master's program in child

life. ≫: Thank you, Provost Bruce. Any comments or questions? ≫: I just have a quick comment. In reading the letters, I was so impressed with the number of alumni who, um, have been working, excuse me, in the child life field and are excited about the opportunity now to pursue a master's in child life. So, already, it looks like you have a few students ready to go. ≫: Thank you, Trustee Luna. Any others? Very good. Provost Bruce, thank you. Well done. Good reports and, with that

, if there is no other information or business before this meeting, we're adjourned. ≫: Two minutes ago, we were supposed to start our audit and business community meeting. (Laughing. ) ≫: So, I'm going to ask everyone, your agenda says you've got 15 minutes to take a break. We're going to try to do it in 10. Please be back in your seat at 10 minutes after 10:00. Please, please, please and, um, we have a lot of business to cover in our audit and business committee meeting today. Than

k you. (Break Taken. ) ≫: I think we're ready to get started. If everyone will take their seats, I think we're ready to get started, and I'll just remind that Trustee Jones is on the phone for now. He can, he's in, um, Denmark, I believe. Is that right, Tom? Tom, are you in Denmark? I think so. Anyway, Trustee Jones is on the phone and will be on for some time, but when he has to drop off, I believe the plan is that I will take his place as the voting member of that committee. So,

Mr. Stites? ≫: Thank you very much, Chairman. I'd like to call to order and roll call, please . ≫: Trustee Jones? ≫: Here. ≫: Trustee Lynn? Chev whichever here. ≫: Trustee Stites? ≫: Here. ≫: You have a quorum. ≫: Thank you, sir. Approval of the minutes, the minutes have been placed in diligent. Each of us have had an opportunity to review them. If there is no discussion, can I get a motion to approve the minutes for November 30th, 2023 meeting? ≫: So moved. ≫: Thank you, si

r. ≫: Seconded. ≫: Okay, great. Thank you. Secretary, please take a roll call vote. ≫: Let me back up just a second. I need to clarify Tom's electronic procedures here. Trustee Jones, can you simultaneously hear and speak to the committee members? ≫: Yes, I can. ≫: Please identify anyone with you in the room that you're located . ≫: My wife is here. ≫: And please confirm that you received the committee materials in advance of the meeting. ≫: Yes, I did. ≫: All right. Thank you

, sir. Roll call for the minutes. Trustee Jones? ≫: I. ≫: Trustee Lynn. ≫: Here. ≫: Trustee Stites? ≫: I. ≫: Motion passes. ≫: Thank you, sir. The next item on the agenda , Dr. Oldham. ≫: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'll make this pretty brief. We're, I guess, roughly halfway through the legislative session for this spring . I have had the opportunity to appear before, both, the house finance committee a few weeks ago and, last week, in front of the senate education committee rel

ated to budget . Dr. Stinson, in a few minutes, will provide an overview of the governor's proposed budget that was in the, um, that was released following the state of the state address and, so, we'll look at, you'll have a chance to look at those budgetary numbers . I will say that, on the house side, there is some conversation, um, about some potential increases, particularly on capital projects that the legislature may take into consideration and, so, we'll continue to follow-up with th

at through the rest of this session . The, probably, in terms of bills, the one bill that is being considered in both houses that would have the most significant impact on us potentially is a bill that would restructure the Tennessee higher Education Commission , and it could affect not only their structure, um, but, also, um, to what extent they have regulatory authority over tuition, over capital project, um, recommendations and new academic program approvals. Those changes could be

pretty substantial and, in any of those cases, could put a lot more autonomy and responsibility on this board in terms of, um, determining what actions are approved here at Tennessee Tech . So, we'll continue to follow that. There's some different perspectives between the leadership and the two houses around the THEC bill and, so, um, there will be some negotiated settlement , I would anticipate, before that is finalized, but I will continue to follow it. I just wanted to make the boar

d aware that that is being considered and, um, we'll, certainly, keep you informed as we go forward and see what happens, but that's, um, I think that's, probably, the extent of my report. Legislature still has a lot of work to do and, um, I, certainly, wouldn't want to get ahead of them or try to predict what they'll eventually do before it's all said and done. So, I do, and I say this to them all the time, we're very fortunate, we have a lot of support, um, for higher education in gener

al, but for Tennessee Tech in particular in the general assembly and really do appreciate, um, the support that we have there and try to be good stewards of what they , um, send our way. So, thank you. ≫: Thank you, Dr. Oldham. Um, I think a lot of that support we have is due to your efforts and your, um, representative down there who does an excellent job as well, so, keep up the good work. Next item is Dr. Stinson, who will present an update of the fiscal year 24/25 governor's budg

et. Dr. Stinson? ≫: Good morning. So, um, looking at, um, the comparison between THEC's recommendations and the governor's budget, one thing I want to say before I start into this, it is not the, um, level of budget that we've had in the past years, but we do have to remember, we'll see this on our historical slide in a few minutes, that we have had good support over the last few years and, so, even though this one was a little depressing for the, um, CFO when we met, we have to keep in mi

nd that we have had some really good support. So, um, on the left-hand -- ≫: Dr. Stinson, and I should have said this before, I apologize, so, to put this in context, in terms of the governor's proposed budget and what the legislature's dealing with, the big issue, financially , that they're dealing with right now is a correction to the franchise and excise tax issued at the state level . It's a pretty sizable liability , roughly a billion dollars that they're trying to satisfy and,

so, they are being pretty conservative in terms of dollars in this year's budget , and that's why this one, the governor 's proposed budget is pretty lean. There's a good chance that there will be some other dollars kicked free, but until they satisfy the F & E tax issue , it's got everybody a little bit cautious . ≫: So, this is looking at the capital recommendations, and we did have, um, a classroom, um, new classroom building scored well with THEC and was recommended as one of the capi

tal outlay projects. It is not in the governor's budget, um, kind of expect that it will not move forward this year. We did have a request for a little over 12 million, almost 13 million, actually, capital maintenance. What is in the governor's budget is $2,570,000 for one project, and I just want to remind the committee members that, in the budget , about four or five years ago, there was a $50 million recurring, um, line item for, um, capital projects, so that means that, each year, we

can count on, for all of higher education, $50 million, and this is Tech's part of that $50 million. We did have request for some ADA funding and, also, safety and security. Those were not included in the budget for capital. So, looking at, um, that $2,570,000, we already had some dollars, but when we got into the renovations, there were some other things that needed to be done, and we had some cost escalations that came about because of the pandemic and, so, we had asked for this 2 m

illion to add to the dollars that we already have available for that. We'll be able to move this project forward, um, as a result of these dollars . ≫: So, I'd like to ask a question about, do you have any idea how much maintenance is on the books for us that is not being addressed this year? ≫: So, um, that 12 million that we had requested are, um, dollars that really, um, are needed. We have, um, worked with a consultant a few years ago on a, um, deferred maintenance that we have on

campus, and we need about 10 million, um, to be coming in every year just to stay even and, um, what I'm remembering is somewhere close to 17 million in order to make some progress, but we, you know, we keep chipping away at it and, keep in mind, too, as we get new, um, facilities, um, those do reduce our overall deferred maintenance . For instance the Johnson Hall renovation, that has a significant reduction to our deferred maintenance dollars also, so , we have to keep those things in

mind. ≫: Well, I want to remind the board that this number's not a static number. If we have a $10 million deficit spending on maintenance this year , that same amount of maintenance next year could be as much as 12 and $15 million, so we can't ignore this. Otherwise, our capital facilities are going to become more and more expensive to maintain. So, just a comment on that. ≫: So, moving on to the operating, um, budget. We did lose some, um, dollars in our, um, outcomes adjustment,

which I'll talk about in a few minutes. THEC did recommend 942,000 for our share of the new funding. Now, this is just for, um, it does not include the salary. The governor's office had asked THEC not to recommend the salary, they would do that within the state budget and did that . So, um, and, then, the governor's budget, it shows new outcomes, um, funding at 853. There was an error made in the distribution of inflation costs last year and, so, the governor's office made an adjus

tment, that's why that number's less, and you will see, the outcomes are different, and they're different by the same amount, so, you know, it washes itself out, but that's why, it was an error that was made in the distribution last year. The governor's budget does include inflationary costs for health insurance. This is the, um, dollars that the university pays as a part of the, um, health insurance that our employees select and, then, the governor's budget did include a salary increa

se of 3 percent, which 55 percent of it is funded at $1,800,000. So, I did ask, um, THEC for an analysis on why, um, our base was reduced , and this is the information on, um, the adjustment on, um, formula base. We did have a positive for our students accumulating 30 hours. Um, students accumulating 60 and 90 hours and, also, our bachelors degree, we had a reduction in those areas. However, with masters degrees and doctoral degrees, we had an increase in that area. Our secure gradua

tion, we lost some money there and, also, degrees per 100 FTE. We did gain in research because of the increased dollars that, um, that we have now in research . Lost in our fixed cost. That's depreciation, that type of thing and, then, we gained $209,000, well, actually, almost $210,000 in quality assurance, and our score was awesome, and the Provost Bruce had reported that to the committee in December, we had a really good score. In fact, we have a hundred percent on that, so, that re

sulted in some increases in dollars . This slide shows, um, what this means to us for net increase in operating appropriations and, so, the net increase is $3,046,500. That's the dollars that we will have in our budget for 24/25 that's not there today. We did have two items in the 23/24 budget for rural reimagined. It was non-recurring funding of a million dollars , and that is not included in this year's budget, and we really don't expect that it'll go back in, but it could, but re

ally aren't planning on that and, then, um, our cybersecurity center had, um, 200,000 of non -recurring funding last year that is not included in the budget this year, but just as a reminder, the cybersecurity center did receive a million dollars of recurring funding last year, and that is in the budget and will continue in the budget in the future. So, looking at the five-year history of the outcomes formula and, um, you can see the new dollars, last year was over 7 million, this year,

it's going to be $3,500,000 and, then, our base adjustments , and we've talked about the base adjustment before, the way the formula works, you tend to gain and, then, you lose and, then, you gain again, and that's typical for all, um, the institutions, not just Tennessee Tech . So, last year, we did gain $251,900, this year, we're losing the 467, so, our net outcome is that $3,046,000. Looking at our estimated cost increase that go into our July budget , the 3 percent salary with its

fringe benefit cost increase is 3. 4 million approximately. We have other inflationary cost increase of about that same amount, $3. 4 million that includes increases in, um, scholarships, our faculty promotions, utility cost increases, and, also, escalation clauses on our software. Total estimated cost increases of $6. 8 million. ≫: Would you, for our new member on our board and some of the other board members who may not remember, would you explain what the quality, um, disbursemen

t was and what that makes up and how we scored in comparison to the other LGIs in the state of Tennessee? ≫: Okay. Um, so, I know from, um, a dollar perspective, this includes, this is about, um, a 5 percent of the total formula that is dedicated to quality assurance, and I do know that our score was a hundred percent. In other words, we got all the points that were available in quality assurance and, so, that does translate into dollars. I think, um, maybe, Provost Bruce can, um, hel

p me out here, but I think that hundred percent had never been achieved by any institution in the past , so, it was, it looks at quality measures within academic programs is what it does . ≫: Go ahead. ≫: Okay. I'll be glad to answer any other questions . ≫: Real quick question . Is the percentage of our total budget increasing or decreasing? ≫: It will be increasing. ≫: Increasing? Okay. ≫: Overall. The biggest increase will be in the salaries line item. That was for the major

cost, and we do have some other costs that are more inflationary type costs, but, um, the big item is the salary increase . ≫: So, of our budget, the state, 60 percent, 40 percent? ≫: So, um, dollars that we receive from the state is closer to 40 percent of, um, our unrestricted operations. ≫: Okay. ≫: Mr. Chairman, you want to go on with the compensation study at this point in time? Okay, let me make a few quick comments. ≫: And let me just say, before you do, President, I'm sorr

y, but Mr. Jones had to leave and, so, I will now be filling in for his, so, sorry, Mr. Stites, you've got a rebellious committee member now. ≫: I'll try to discipline you during the meeting. (Laughing. ) ≫: Let me just make a few quick comments for our colleagues from Mercer coming to make their presentation, and I'll let Kevin introduce them in just a minute, and let me just say thanks to them for the support they've provided through this compensation study, but just, sort of, a cont

ext and reminder to the board that we entered into this, um, I guess, roughly, a year ago, to do a major, um, review, really look under the hood here in terms of our total compensation and structure around job, um, categories and descriptions to, with a goal of being market competitive . That's the primary goal and, so, we really ask the Mercer folks to do a deep dive and, um, understand what we're trying to accomplish, who we're competing against, and to come up with some recommendation

s on how to best structure ourselves going forward and , in terms of, um, being competitive, but, also, to help us determine what reasonable targets there would be for improving the overall compensation of, um, faculty and staff across campus and, so, that's what this is about. I'll, um, I'll let them make their presentation and, then, um, following that presentation, we'll get into what, um, what we believe, at least at this point, is our path forward, um, to address the results of this s

tudy and, um, and, then, um, have some opportunity to discuss, um, what that looks like or what that could look like over the next few years. So, with that, I'll just, I'll turn it over to Kevin, and he can introduce our colleagues from Mercer . ≫: Thank you, President Oldham. As President Oldham mentioned, we've been in collaboration with Mercer for a little over a year. It's been a great partnership with them and, um, I'm pleased to introduce today LaCinda Glover and Matt Mullen, sen

ior principals with Mercer, and they're going to go over the findings of the classification study. With that, I'll turn it over to LaCinda and Matt. Thank you. ≫: Thank you very much, President Oldham and, um, Kevin . Thank you for having us this morning and for engaging Mercer to do this study . So, with that, we can jump right in . So, we were engaged, as President Oldham mentioned, about a year ago to really look at modernizing Tennessee Tech's compensation and classification progr

am with the objective of retaining, rewarding, um, and, really , attracting the best talent, so that we can advance what you guys are trying to do here at the institution. So, that really was a multi-phase process, and you think compensation, we're just going to, kind of, jump right in and start pulling market data, but there's a lot of background work that really goes into that to ensure that we have updated job descriptions, to ensure that we have jobs aligned, um, across the institu

tion and, so, really, the foundational piece of that started with discovery and, um, some stakeholder feedback. So, we met with various constituents throughout the institution, stakeholder groups, um, across different disciplines, across different levels of staff and got their take on what was really working well, what some of the challenges were and, really, used that to help inform all of the work that followed. So, with that information, we, then, dug into looking at the jobs and, s

o, we took those jobs , and a job architecture is, essentially, a way to just organize jobs, um, both in the nature of work that's being done and the hierarchy to which that work is being done and, so, we looked at those jobs across the institution, working closely with supervisors to make sure that those supervisors had input on their jobs and how those jobs were, essentially, evaluated and leveled and, then , also, worked in conjunction with an extended project team outside of the Huma

n Resources office to make sure that everyone was in, um, agreement with how those jobs were leveled before we pulled any compensation data. So, from that job architecture piece, we updated the job descriptions based on where those jobs ended up from a level standpoint and, then , we started pulling compensation information, and you can see , that job architecture and job description work took, you know , from April to December, so, a lot of heavy lifting going in there to make sure that

we had a strong foundation before we started pulling salary data. Then, the third phase of the project was, really, more around the compensation piece. So, coming up with a sound methodology, which we're going to walk through as well, um, on where you want to be positioned, who is the market, who are your competitors and your peers, um, and, then, pulling that salary data from various sources, college and university surveys, and, also, broader database of general industry companies. Th

en, once that information was pulled and we really looked and assessed how you were positioned relative to that market, we developed a salary structure, which really is updated ranges or job grades, um, and each of those having, sort of, a minimum , a mid point, and a maximum. So, looking broadly at that structure. Lastly is the phase that we're in now, is what's the path forward, and how do we make sure all of this work that's been done sets you guys up for future success, and that you c

an really maintain this in the upcoming years. Next slide, please. So, this is just, hopefully, a level set around what is exactly a job architecture and where did we end up for Tennessee Tech. So, we looked at all of the jobs across the institution, and we categorized them into 14 job families and 16 sub-families, and what that really is is just a way to combine areas that have a similar nature of work, require similar skill sets , into a similar area. So, an example of that could be

Human Resources would be the macro job family and, then, within that, compensation and benefits, employee relations, HR operations, those are, kind of, your sub-families that exist, and it is tailored to your institution . We have broad data that, sort of, looks at this at the macro level, but when you look at Tennessee Tech, there's unique areas. So, for example, within facilities, which is an overarching job family, one of those sub-families is farm operations. I can promise you, we

don't have that at every institution that we work with, so, it is unique to the institution. From there, we really took those and said what are the different career streams that exist? So, there are four career streams that we developed, starting at the support level and, then, moving to the professional, which you can, kind of, align with an individual contributor and, then, the management level and, then, the executive level. So, those are the four career streams that we, then, took th

ose hierarchy of families and sub-families and categorized into those and, then, within those career streams , we looked at the various levels that might exist and, for an institution of your size, we came up with four levels of support, five levels of professional or individual contributor, four levels of management and, then, three levels of exec, and some of those levels overlap. So, I know if you add these up, it may look like 16 levels, but there's some overlap, if you think about

someone that's a very senior -level individual contributor aligning with someone who is, you know , a manager over a team of people or individuals. Then, from there, to, really, slat your jobs into this new hierarchy, we looked at five different factors that span institutional impact, innovation and complexity, communication and influence, leadership and talent development, and knowledge and experience and developed factors for each of those different career levels to help supervisors lo

ok at their jobs and the duties and responsibilities associated with those and make sure they're aligning them to the appropriate level. Matt's going to talk us through the benchmarking. ≫: Thanks, LaCinda. So, before we get into the results of the actual compensation benchmarking, we wanted to level-set with the methodology and the approach used. So, as LaCinda just talked through, the job architecture and career architecture, we have that foundation set, now, we can go to the mar

ket and gather appropriate compensation data. So, I want to make sure we're all saying the same thing when we refer to market. There's really three different approaches we took depending on the type of job or role and, so, for the first, faculty, we looked at academic peers, so, that's a group of other higher education institutions, um, public institutions within the state of Tennessee, as well as public institutions in surrounding states, um, with the Carnegie classification of R2 or

doctoral professional, so, very similar Carnegie classification, um, to you all. If we transition, then, to the staff side, for senior-level staff, those that really compete more broadly for talent, so, think of the executive-level roles, high-level managers , the data here represents a 50/ 50 blend of higher education and broader general industry. So, when you think of things like HR, finance, IT, communications, you may compete more broadly for talent than just other higher educatio

n institutions. So, when we look at the mix of the market there, the higher education data is the exact same that is being used for faculty, but we do bring in that broader industry data with a 50 percent waiting, and it is scoped to organizations of similar size. So, it's not necessarily looking at the Amazons of the world or very small organizations as well, so, we've scoped that to similar-sized organizations. One other thing to point out on the broader industry data is that, as you

can see from the higher education data I just talked about, there's a regional aspect of that, a geography component, right? Tennessee and other surrounding states, so, the broader industry data is national data. We take a look at the cost of labor differences or what organizations are paying from a national perspective, as well as a regional difference, um, and there's about a 5 percent difference there on average, so we've adjusted that data to have a regional influence as well. Then,

as we transition to other staff, or more junior-level roles, there's, really, two primary differences I want to highlight. The first is, when we look at higher education peers , we've, essentially, broadened the group, so, we've removed the Carnegie classification . Still, the same regional set, but, now, includes some very large R1 type institutions, as well as, maybe, some smaller institutions. Similarly, on the broader industry side, we've removed that size scoping. So, if you thin

k of a VP-level job or a vice president or director, that size, really, of the organization can speak to the complexity of that individual's job, but I'll pick on, if you think of an entry-level accountant, the complexity of that job is less dependent on the size of the organization, it's just the Amazons of the world or Googles may have more entry-level accountants than a smaller organization, so we've removed that for the more junior-level staff. Okay, if we want to go to the next pag

e, this really gets to the highlights of that market compensation study and, so, on the left side of the page here, we'll start with faculty. Again, overall, the very bright blue line at the bottom of the page, faculty salaries are positioned 5 percent below the market median, or the 50th percentile, the middle of the market. There's going to be variation, as you can see, by college and, also, by individual, and we'll get into that as we talk about implementation plan, but at an aggrega

te level , overall, 5 percent below the median. Most colleges, as you can see here, are below the median . All are within 15 percent of that market median, but there are a select few that are really close to the market median, in particular the College of Engineering. As we transition to the staff, we've separated the results out here by employee level and, again, this talks to that leveling hierarchy that LaCinda just talked about through the job architecture. It's a little bit of a

different story. So, you can see, again, at all levels, salaries are below the middle of the market, that market median, but more significantly so for the support level staff and the professional level staff . So, really, those individual contributors and, as an institution, that represents the bulk of your workforce, right? There are more folks in those roles, so you can see the overall positioning is 16 percent below the market median . So, then, the question becomes, as we have th

e results of the market study, what's next? And what do we want to do with this information? And, so, at a very high level, kind of guiding principles philosophy here is, one is to improve the market positioning. As I think was mentioned earlier, the target positioning and the goal for the institution is to pay competitively with the middle of the market, that market median. So, the first and foremost is to improve the overall market positioning. One of the ways to do this, and LaCi

nda talked about this, was, kind of, phase three of our project, is to develop a new market-based pay structure, where we've designed pay grades with ranges that are very aligned to the market data that we polled, and , now, those jobs are aligned, um, with the market data for the respective role. On the faculty side, it works a bit different. So, each individual rank and discipline were individually benchmarked to market, so there's not as much of a need for a salary structure. That's t

rue, that's a true one-to-one market-based approach there and, then, second is not only do we want to improve positioning, but we want to maintain that pay levels over time and, so, that's one of the advantages of the salary structure, is it allows you to maintain, allow for salary progression within a given job over, not just one year , but two, three, four, five years , etc. ≫: So, next, we're going to talk through some of the priorities for fiscal year 2024, and these changes are ret

roactive to January 1st of this year. The first is bringing all employees to at least a $15 an hour minimum, which is approximately $30,000 salary a year and, if you think back to the chart Matt showed with the sliders, you could see that the support were the least competitive, and this is going to help raise that group up to be more competitive with a market rate and, then, the second piece is to, really, bring faculty and staff within a competitive range, trying to get them more competi

tive from a compensation standpoint, um, based on their rank or discipline or their role on the staff side and, really, trying to align areas that are really core to the institution's strategic plan in doing that. Move forward to fiscal year 2025, we're going to continue down that path of trying to get those salaries more competitive, but, then, also, provide at least a 1 percent increase to all eligible faculty and staff and, then, you can see that, kind of, carrying into fiscal year 2

026 and 2027, and the idea in those future years is to start to get closer to someone's expected positioning within this range. So, if I take an individual and I really assess their experience, um, and their performance, where should they be positioned within the range, and trying to make progress on that and, then, in addition to that, trying to get everyone at least a 1 percent, um, increase across the board. So, that was a lot of information, and it's, typically, a fairly engaging topi

c, so, happy to take any questions that you guys have about the work that's been done and what we just shared. ≫: I'll jump right in. First of all, thank you guys so much for all the work that you've done. I did have the opportunity to participate in some of the small sessions that you had and, so, we really appreciate getting to work with Mercer for this. Um, I have two questions. The first one is, help me understand, what's the final hand-off of product to Tennessee Tech? Do you, be

cause, obviously, you've mapped these positions, but, you know, I'm going to assume were 98 percent right, but, maybe, there's some positions that don't get mapped correctly. So, do you continue to work with Tech, or do you have a full report that you give and then HR implements? What does that hand-off look like in the next few months? ≫: That's a great question. Um, so, we have transitioned all of our files, um, over to Tennessee Tech and, then , we also put in place a process for ev

aluating those jobs on a go-forward basis. So, if there's a new job created, how do we, then, align them to the new job architecture? How do we assign them to a job family, a sub-family, a career level, um, and, so, all of that information has been transitioned over, and there will be changes. There's always going to be changes, because we just heard, you guys are implementing a brand new program, right? So, there's constantly going to be changes in how this is done, um, and, then, th

e other piece is, really, making sure that we provide information to you guys on how the market is moving from a compensation perspective. So, the market, over the last few years, has been moving at a much more accelerated rate than anything we saw prior to 2020 and, so, we have compensation planning data that we will share with the HR team, um, to make sure that they are, you know, aware of those changes and they keep up with that as well, but putting in process, um, a plan to be able

to update those salary ranges on an annual basis, so that you truly are at least keeping current and knowing how competitive you are, and it's not just a stagnant range, um, that doesn't move for several years. ≫: Okay and, then, I did have a second one. Sorry. I got so excited about the first, I forgot the second. So, um, you know, you mentioned, like, a pay philosophy. I've seen that term before. In addition to thinking about compensation as the money that we make, um, did you make

recommendations to HR about things, you know, that support work -life balance or that make working at Tennessee Tech a place that people want to work? You know, um, we saw in the last few years a real transition to remote work options, or I know, um, other universities in the state offer flexible summer schedules. So, did you also make recommendations on that, or is that a separate piece? ≫: That is a separate piece and wasn't included, but I think Matt would attest to this as well, he

and I both work in what we call the total awards area, which means we, kind of, think outside of just compensation, to your point, that it's really just one layer, but there's so many other factors and, so, we have had multiple conversations about how those factors come into play, um, and I do think, as an institution, there are some things that you offer that we just don't see in general industry. So, when Matt walked through, um, you know, how we developed the market and that we're l

ooking at general industry companies as well, when we think about, you know, staff jobs, um, that is a factor that, I think, plays to your benefit, um, in that the culture that you create, the benefit programs that you offer, the flexibility that you may offer, like, all of those things factor into someone's decision to stay. Comp is really just one element. It's important. I haven't yet found an organization where employees are willing to work for free, but it's not the only factor th

at comes into play . ≫: I have a question on the overall market compensation competitiveness. Define your median. Is that the average or the mean? ≫: The question was is that the average or the mean when we talk about median. So, I was a math major, so I can say this in a dorky way, right, but median is the middle of the market. So, if you lined up a hundred data points, you're really looking at that data point that falls in the middle and, from a, um, validation standpoint, it's a

more steady number than looking at average, which is going to be skewed based on outliers, either on the high end or on the low end of the market, and one comment to call out on that slider slide, as well as the market on the faculty side, as you could probably imagine, is a bit tighter, whereas, on the staff side, there's a lot more variation in the dollar values that are out there and, so, the median really gives you that steady middle point to focus on. ≫: I was in the construction i

ndustry, and we used RS means. Are you familiar with that in terms of cost variations among regions of the country ? And, in that book, Nashville was 11 percent under the average for the nation . When you say that, um, we are 5 percent below the median, I meant to say they were 11 percent under the median, so, we, in this area, we're even lower than, um, Nashville is in terms of cost of living. So, when you say we're 5 below, percent below the median , have you calculated in the cost

of living here versus some other place? And how did you do that? ≫: Yeah. Great question. So, there's a couple of ways that we look at the cost of labor, which is a little bit different than the cost of living, because you could live in a fairly aggressive cost of living region, but you have a plethora of talent to choose from, right? So, we do look at cost of labor. Cost of labor in Cookeville is about 14 percent below the national market. The challenge in saying we're going to

adjust that data down 14 percent is you also have a challenge to attract the right talent to this region and, so, oftentimes, we find, in smaller, rural areas, right, it's harder to get talent to come in for some of these core jobs, especially those that are , like, your senior-level staff, some of your faculty roles and, so, what we didn't want to do was say we're just going to cut that by 15 percent , because we felt like that would give you a competitive disadvantage. So, we took a b

roader look at the southeast region and how that data compared to the national data, and that's where we found that minus 5 percent. So, in general, when you're looking at a more regional view, the southeast falls about 5 percent below national, and we felt like that allowed you to represent that it is a lower cost of living area and a lower cost of labor area without going so far down that you, potentially, um, you know, aren't able to attract the talent that you need. ≫: I have a que

stion. Can you guys hear me? Okay, perfect. Just a question on the, um, adjustment to the minimum salary of $15. How does that impact, um, that support group related to the median ? ≫: That's a great question. I can address this as well. So, it's going to have a significant impact, because a lot of those roles are below that level, right, the current pay level, so that will have a significant impact to increase that, you know , back to that slider slide, the dot closer to market me

dian. It will not have a direct impact on all of those roles , because there are roles within that that are paid above that $15, right, and each individual job, just to be clear, is benchmarked to market for that role based on the roles and responsibilities, the leveling. So, the short answer is it will have a very significant impact for a subset of that support level population . ≫: Does it bring it back at the median line or still below median? Can you quantify it a little bit more? ≫

: For most of those jobs that are below there, that's going to bring that within a competitive range of that market median, so, very close to the market median. ≫: Okay, thank you. ≫: Yeah, and one just additional add is, when we think about being competitive for an individual, you know, you may be looking at a plus or minus 10 percent, to say that person is close to the median. When we're looking at aggregate, we try to get closer to plus or minus 5 percent. So, even on the faculty s

ide, being 5 percent below is pretty close to saying we are nearly aligned with the median. So, it is going to bring them much more competitive with that 50th percent sile, but it's not going to be dot on the nose, and that's not uncommon, because you're going to have folks that are brand new to a role that , maybe, aren't yet at that 50th percentile rate, and that's normal. So, that's why we have that range around the market, to really capture various levels of experience and various le

vels of performance . ≫: Can you speak quickly to the, um, categorization topic again? Because I see the methodology here, but, maybe, an example of cross-disciplinary, you know, categorization that you've created , some sort of category structure that crosses multiple departments. I mean, we see the graph that shows all the different colleges, um, good point there, so, can you speak, maybe, to an example of that? Because I'm having a hard time connecting those dots in my head. ≫: Su

re. When we think about the job architecture, the career architecture , I think a great example is an administrative assistant type role, right? You're going to have all of those roles in each of the colleges, right, across all of the different divisions departments, but at the end of the day, when you look at those roles, there's a lot of similarity in the types of work they're doing, the complexity of the job and, so, that may exist as its own sub-family. Really, when you think abou

t the categorization of the jobs, it's what are the skills, what are the responsibilities, the duties that make that job very similar. The content could be a little bit different, but that's how we group this . ≫: How does that translate into actual areas of study? Does it translate into the areas of study at all, or is it, basically, administrative supportive, those kind of roles? ≫: That's right. There's a separation there, a disconnect. It's not tied to if I'm in administrative su

pport in biology versus I'm in administrative support in engineering. It's really looking at, kinds of, the type of work that's being done, setting aside that content. So, there is a very different, there's a difference between the job architecture, the career architecture and the reporting relationship, for example . ≫: So, does this or does this not apply to the actual faculty content? ≫: That's a great question as well. So, that job architecture, career architecture really is focu

sed on staff. Faculty are separate, and we were talking about this earlier, but I think faculty are one of the original ones to have a very well-defined career architecture of its own, right? There are specific disciplines with ZIP codes, there are defined ranks that are very consistent across all institutions and, so , that, in and of itself, is, kind of, a self- contained career architecture. So, what LaCinda had described is very much focused on the staff side. ≫: I can add to that

, as a faculty member who's done hiring. You know , we go back to that report, which is a national comparison , to know how much an incoming assistant professor in geology should be making. We don't have a report like that that we can lean on to know how much I should hire an administrative associate to come into the department, and I've only got one that sits in my department, so, even comparing across the university, we have to rely on, really , HR to help us with those comparisons,

or the Provost office and HR. ≫: There definitely is a focus on internal equity in those roles as well, is that we want to align jobs that are doing similar work, at a similar level, um, together and not have them, kind of , scattered around the various colleges and, so, that's why linking them together is important, because, then, we can take that compensation data for those roles and make sure that we truly are paying them an apples to apples rate for the work that's being done . ≫: A

nymore discussion? If not, may I get a motion to send the proposed market results in Mercer's compensation and classification study to the board for approval and place it on the board's regular agenda? Thank you. ≫: So moved. ≫: Is there a second? ≫: Second. ≫: Thank you. Secretary, please call the roll . ≫: Trustee Harper? ≫: I. ≫: Trustee Lynn? ≫: I. ≫: Trustee Stites? ≫: I. ≫: Motion passes. ≫: Thank you. The next item of business is the compensation plan, and Dr. Stinson

is going to speak to that momentarily. It's a plan for fiscal year 23 and 24 and fiscal year 24 and 25. Dr. Stinson? ≫: Yeah, if I could, Mr. Chairman, let me make a few quick comments and, again, thank our friends from Mercer for their presentation and the work that they've done. So, what Dr. Stinson's going to present to you now is , um, sort of, our, the initial phases of how to address the results of this Mercer study, and what you will see is a multi-year projection on how to get

us to market medians over a reasonable period of time, approximately four fiscal years, three calendar years. We believe we can do that. There's, clearly, some assumptions built into this and, um, but, also, I would say some opportunities for mid-course additions, corrections along the way. So, what we're going to attempt to do is to deploy that first, um, 2 percent salary to a hold-back that we have in this current fiscal year, back to January 1st and address the, what we would say ar

e the most, um, significant findings in the Mercer study, um, to bring things closer to market across the board. This will, you know, what we're doing in this first phase will not address all the issues, and everybody needs to understand that . This is our first attempt, um, and it will take a concerted effort over multiple years to get everybody, um, in line with the, um, market. So, I'll let Dr. Stinson walk you through these slides, but I just wanted to, kind of, frame that for every

body and, um, make sure we understand, and we'll have plenty of time to discuss it afterwards, after she shows her slides. ≫: Okay, thank you. Um, so, the very first step that, um, we would like to take to address the market study is, of course, the 2 percent that we held back at the end, or at the beginning of fiscal year 23/ 24, um, to address the market study that we knew was going to be coming up. So, that's about $1,700,000, proposing to have it retroactive to January 1st of 2024. T

his would include bringing all the permanent employees to at least $15 an hour, and it would not, um, apply to anyone who was on a performance improvement plan, they would not be eligible for, um, an increase . Objective is to move the university as a whole toward the market medium and to focus on areas where we, um, our salaries need to be more competitive . So, looking at this , this is the slide that, um, you all have seen from, um, the two individuals from Mercer, with the exception

of having a red block and, so, these are the areas marked within the red box that, um, that we would concentrate on with this $1,700,000. So, with the faculty , it does involve several of the colleges, but not all of them and, with the staff, it is concentrated on the support and on the professional career streams on this particular study. Then, moving on to the second step, which would be, um, the 3 percent that's in the governor's budget and, of course, it's pending approval of the

governor's budget, that will give us another $2. 3 million, and we would use that, also, to address the market study , with a merit component incorporated in it, so we would still have the employee evaluations and look at those merit scores. It would be effective July 1st of 2024. It would be for any employees with satisfactory or better evaluations. Here again, any employees on a, um, performance improvement plan would not be eligible. It would concentrate on employees hired prior to Ap

ril 1 and still employed at, um, July 1 of 2024. We're proposing a minimum award of 1 percent and a maximum of 10 percent on that. ≫: Dr. Stinson, if I can interrupt you for half a second, you addressed in this slide, for the upcoming year, that we will include a merit component. It's my understanding and, so, Dr. Oldham, this is dangerous, because I'm representing what I think you have told me, but with the 2 percent we had left over from last year, you're going to address those ar

eas that we talked about, but there's still going to be a merit component in that, it's just going to use the merit from the previous year's review, is that right? ≫: Well, I think, and we've been working our way through this, we believe, at this point in time, the best way to use the existing fiscal year dollars to move toward the market is to take the current distribution of salaries that reflect performance already -- ≫: That's what I was trying to ask . ≫: And try to move the center

of mass more closer to the market -- ≫: That's what I understood. I just wanted to be sure that, in my mind, that reflects the distribution of merit that you already had last year and, so, you're still capturing a merit component, you're not going back and doing a new merit study on each of these people . ≫: We are not and, going forward, um, we still got some work to do to figure out exactly how to best integrate the performance evaluations, along with the market adjustments that we

need to do and, so, um, you know, what I would suggest to the board at this point in time, and we can, in June, we'll be able to, um, you know, come back and report to the board exactly what we are going to do going forward, but, certainly, we will suggest that we will incorporate, both, market and merit into these future distributions, I just don't know, at this point in time, exactly how that distribution and what that implementation is going to look like. ≫: Thank you. Sorry to int

errupt, but I just didn't want to leave anybody with a misunderstanding . ≫: So, um, going forward beyond, um, the upcoming fiscal year, our proposal is to continue to address the market study, incorporating the merit component, um, looking at a line in salaries with the expected position in those new pay grades, which would be based on an employee's time and role and their performance and, then, to strategically focus on employees who are performing on track or above average, but their

salaries are below the market median . You know, early, um, early estimates is a potential to need an annual salary pulse up to 5 percent in order to address this and, also, keep ourselves moving with markets. So, um, so, that is, um, the proposals that we're looking at . ≫: Dr. Stinson, I have a question. If we could go back to the, um, the slider bar image. Sorry, I don't know what to call it. Okay, so, obviously, within each one of those dots is a whole bunch of salaries, so, tha

t means that , for example, in College of Education, there are likely salary inversions in that college that need to be corrected. Will those, although they're not highlighted in this nice, red box, are those corrections also expected with this first iteration? ≫: So, um, looking at the first, um, iteration, the inversions, we will start to work on those, but they will not be apart of that first, but they will absolutely be apart of the July 1. ≫: Okay, so, I want to make sure, just as

a Chair, I understand how this is going to work, right ? So, come July 1, I'm going to have this 1 to 10 percent range, so it'll be my responsibility to look at my unit and, if I see some inversions, then, I have market flexibility to correct some of that and, also, to preserve merit that is already there and award merit from this past year. Am I understanding the approach correctly? ≫: Let me address that, and the honest answer is we're looking at all of that right now and not really

sure, and the reason I'm not sure, because we don't have a complete understanding at this moment of those salary inversion issues. I don't know the magnitude of that particular salaries, you know, how much dollars that would cost and, um, what exactly that means. So, what we're going to do over the next, um, few weeks is to try to get a better handle on exactly, um, how much that will be , to correct salary inversions and to prioritize those in a way that can fit into a multi- year strat

egy, um, to get us where we need to go. I really did want to do that with this first group of dollars , but it was clear, we didn't have a good enough understanding of that at this point in time . So, we're going to dig into that . We should have a plan in the next few weeks on at least how to start addressing the inversion issue and how to factor it along into the equation, along with market, um, alignment and performance going into the July 1st salary increases. So, um, that's a wor

k in progress . You know, we will, certainly, confer with, um, all the, um, various stakeholders around campus, department chairs, deans, working through the Provost office, but HR will also be looking at the staff structures and where we may have some unexplainable, um, inversions taking place that we need to adjust and, um, we'll just have to prioritize those. Does that make sense? ≫: It does. I really want to, it does, it answers that part. Um, in addition to the inversions, the ot

her thing we, kind of, struggle with is how exactly raises get applied to a vacant position. So, say we have an associate professor who, I hate to think they'd ever leave us, but they leave and go somewhere else and, so, we're trying to hire another one and be competitive and bring someone in. Um, in the salary pool that comes from the state , do we automatically, sort of, apply that middle raise to that? Do we try to use this 1 to 10 percent to keep those positions up as well? So, th

ere's inversions, and there's vacancies, there's all these little threads that, kind of, hang off of this. ≫: Sure. I'm not sure I'm the best one to try to address this. In general, the salary that is, has been in the vacant position would continue in that position until filled. If that's not adequate to address the market competitiveness, um, you know, that's, obviously, a conversation through the Provost office to see what, if any, adjustments need to be made, and I know Dr. Bruce

has been very, um, very deliberate and conscientious about making sure that we make competitive starting salary offers to incoming faculty, which is very important to do and, so, I'm not aware of any situations that that has been a major issue, but I have no doubt that there are adjustments that have to be made periodically to accommodate that, but, so, I mean, your point is well-taken, but whether or not the incremental dollars get tagged to a specific position can become a little bit o

f a management problem , because you're not necessarily putting it where it's the best use at the moment, so, um, did I explain that adequately, Lori ? Does that make sense? ≫: Um, yeah and, um, you know, as we prepare our budgets, um, we are, um, of course, required to carry a 2 percent and, um, up to 5 percent, we don't really have to explain, so we usually try to make sure that we are somewhat above the 2 percent as we prepare budgets, so that we can have dollars that could be used to d

edicate to that, but , also, you know, when we have vacancies , sometimes, believe it or not, the new hire is at a whole lot less salary than the person who left that position. Now, that's, um, very true in the staff area and, so, those dollars, then, will become available, not necessarily in that department, but where there is another department that's doing a hire that needs, um, their market is higher than the person leaving the position . So, it's something that we look at on a co

ntinuous basis, and I don't know that there's an absolute good solution to it, um, but, you know, we always find the resources that we need to make those hires. ≫: That makes a lot of sense. Will the board permit me one more question? Okay. So, one more, just so I make sure I totally understand this, because I know, I'm sure there's some faculty watching today and staff, and we've been waiting for this report. Okay, so, to help move these slider bars up, we've got this 1. 7 million,

we've got this 3 percent raise pool that's coming , so, we're not looking at cutting operating dollars to move these? I know that the university has to contribute that 45 percent to help make the raise pool, but just to put everyone's mind at ease, we're going to use these raise pools, and that's how these are going to get addressed? ≫: Yes and, so, what we're looking at right now, we have already identified the 45 percent for the 1.7 million. That is an absolute number and, then, what we

're looking at right now is what is, you know, the cost that we will need to come up with, and that will be apart of our, um, budget for, um, July and, um, so, we're going to look in a few minutes at an information item on what do tuition increases look like. That was apart of the discussions at THEC, and I'll talk about that in just a second. So, Dr. Oldham, you had some more remarks you wanted to make about this? ≫: Yes. So, I think, um, what I would really appreciate from the board i

n particular is any outstanding questions that you might have, concerns, any, um, comments along this line , but to this approach, philosophically, about , um, and this particular slide is the most appropriate one to look at, in terms of our approach is to focus on those, um, those dots on this graph that are the furthest removed from the market alignment for those respective job categories. Now, that does not mean that every group is going to get the same amount of dollars , but the ap

proach is to, um, focus that 1. 7 million on those dots in those boxes identified and try to move those closer to the market median. So, um, if successful, to some extent, none of those dots will get to the market median based on this 1. 7 million, I'll make that clear upfront, but they should all move , um, to the right in closer alignment with the median of the market, and what I would propose to do is be able to come back, hopefully at our June meeting and show you the progress that has

been made based on that 1.7 million. So, you know, if there's general consensus from the board, I don't need a vote, but, you know, if there's general agreement that this is the right approach, that's the way we're going to proceed. ≫: So, is the approach, then, to take the totality of that and, then, create a budget on a college basis that they will, then, use to, you know, sort of, give according to need, so to speak , so that those departments have a little bit more in their pool to

move their staff forward? ≫: Basically, yes. So, it will vary. Just to give you, sort of, a sense of how this breaks down by magnitude and what my thinking is at the moment, that the, just that support staff dot on the right-hand side of that graph, that will, probably, consume about half of the dollars we have to distribute at this point in time and, um, it, um, because, partly because it's a lot of people, there's a lot of people in that category and, um, the dot is, um, pretty far

removed from the market median. So, um, but what we're looking at, um, would move all of those dots in those boxes to the right and get them , probably, most of them close to halfway toward the market median , roughly. So, but we'll see. We'll see exactly how it shakes out, but based on our estimates, I think that's -- ≫: Will there be any guidelines attached to that? So, if a pool of money is given to, for example, the college of interdisciplinary studies, that there is guidelines, s

o that we protect merit increases or whatever for standing staff, so that it doesn't all just go to this one pool? ≫: Yeah. For this first group of dollars, most likely, how this will be implemented is, I mean, we know the positions, we know the individuals in those positions and, um, I think the best way , mathematically, to move the dots is to actually give a fixed dollar amount. Now, the fixed dollar amount will be different, if it's the School of Nursing faculty versus support staf

f, for example, but, um, for all employees in those job categories, in those units would get the same fixed dollar amount added to their salary, so , that would move the distribution in total closer to the market median. So, again, the exact dollar would be different for School of Nursing versus library versus, um, interdisciplinary studies, but that's, it would move all those dots in that direction. Does that make sense? ≫: Yes. ≫: Um, there's two areas I want to speak to. One is the

1 to 10 category for performance. If I remember correctly, the board passed on that , and we said how we would divide it each time there's money to be spent up, and I don't think we ought to take any money out of that category and put it somewhere else, if the board has designed it to go there . ≫: Yeah. I know the board has, certainly, approved compensation plans for specific years in the past. I don't think the board has made any, um, statement philosophically or otherwise about , um,

how we should proceed every year, you know, and, certainly, the board can do that, if it chooses to, but, um, I think the reason for putting that range in there , 1 to 10 percent, is to allow plenty of room to, for any given employee, um, to make sure that we're able to address the issues at hand. So, you got plenty of flexibility to do that. Nobody would get less than 1 percent, assuming they have a good performance evaluation, um, and we would cap it at 10 percent, um, so that, and th

ere may be a few employees on campus that 10 percent , between performance and market adjustments, um, you know, you might be able to justify more than 10 percent, but in order to move the needle in a given year , that gives us some flexibility to do that. I hope that makes sense. It's, so, you're, sort of, beginning to drill down an an individual basis at this point in time, on how you could actually distribute the dollars and reach the objectives of the, you know, the goals of the stud

y. ≫: I'm, certainly, not referring to any individual, all I'm saying is that if you have a performance metrics and you're paying on that metric, then you shouldn't take that money to even everybody out or get a base amount to the rest of the people who, maybe, didn't , they were at a 10 level on one case, one level on another, but because we moved the money over here to a different pot, then they both got the same amount of money. ≫: Yeah, and that's, I think that's the area that we'v

e still got to do some work and try to figure out exactly how to, um, how to integrate, both, performance and market adjustments into our thinking for the July adjustments. We're not there yet and, um, I'll be glad to, um, revisit this over the next couple of months with board members individually or, you know, however we want to do that, to make sure everybody's comfortable with what we think we're getting to, but we're just not there yet. I wish we were, but we're not . ≫: My second q

uestion has to do with the, um, $15 minimum that was in the language . My experience in my business was, if I gave a raise to minimum wage for the lowest employees, I had to raise it for everybody , because you have to keep that differential between the unskilled and the skilled or those who are just coasting and those that are really superstars performing at a high level, and I don't want to punish those at the high level, those who are, um, deserving of raises, because we brought the bo

ttom up just arbitrarily. ≫: Yeah. That's a great point. Could you go back to the slider bar slide that everybody likes so much? So, in this particular case, because, actually, I agree with you, Trustee Stites, but in this particular case, if you look, you know, the criteria that we're using here is to try to align each job category with their market, with the market we're competing against for those types of jobs and, so, when it comes to , for example, support, I just don't think it'

s appropriate to compare support staff to, say, executive staff, because they're totally different, totally different issues. ≫: Absolutely. ≫: But you can say, relative to their competitive market , they're the furthest removed from the competitive market . So, really, from a strategic standpoint in the university , we're better served by being able to move them to a more competitive position, so that we can hire and retain the best talent in those positions and, so, um, that's all I'm

suggesting here, is that, for market adjustments, we're not really saying we're going to take it away from anybody else, um, we're saying, okay, we're going to help each group by job category get to market competitiveness , that's the goal, and, so, um, you know, by looking at the ones that are furthest removed from market competitiveness right now and focusing on that initially, I think it gets us all in the right direction. Hopefully, at some point in time in the not too distant futu

re , we can be having a conversation around, okay, how do we go beyond the market median , particularly in some strategic areas of campus, you know, what are some areas where we really need to be, um, above or, maybe, even well above market median to accomplish the goals of the institution. That's the conversation I really want to have, but I think until we can do, um, before we can do that, we've got to address, um, those areas of campus that are well below market competitiveness. I hop

e that makes sense. ≫: In response to my previous question, you mentioned that the 2 percent, or 1. 7 million, half of that would be to address the small box on the staff side . Is that the $15 an hour, um, adjustment? I mean, is that where that -- ≫: Partly. Yeah, partly. So, um, I think our estimates right now, well, let me put it this way, um, if we make the adjustments, um, for example, support staff is where that $15 minimum wage would really be impacted, and it's not, the $15 min

imum wage is part of the deficit to market median, but it's, oh , it's, probably, um, 10, 15 percent of it. ≫: Ten to 15 percent of -- ≫: If you were trying to move that support dot all the way to the market median, the amount of dollars that you'd be putting into the minimum wage issue alone would be, maybe, 10 percent . So, it's not, it's a portion of it, but it's not, if we do what, um, the way I think we're going to do it with, say , support staff, we will go ahead and, um, adjust all

those salaries, and it will automatically, by doing that, it will automatically reduce and almost eliminate the $15 minimum wage issue. Does that make sense? ≫: Yeah, yeah. We experience similar things in our business. ≫: I'd like to talk really quickly, um, about a pain point. I know the board, sometimes, asks for, you know, what's working great and what's been difficult. So, in the pools that have been approved, um, maybe , over the last three years or so, right, when we've appr

oved a pool for merit, um, last year, we approved a 3 percent pool, and we said you could get from 1 to 5 percent. What is the pain point there is that there's no flexibility in that for a supervisor to correct an inversion, right ? So, you might have someone who comes in, and you also have someone who's been there and is doing a great job , but you can't give them quite enough to correct that inversion when they come in, so, I really appreciate that this includes, both, merit and marke

t and gives supervisors flexibility, right ? Because I think we've tried the meritler and, unfortunately, we want merit to be apart of it, we want to award amazing performance and move that up, but we also need more flexibility to be able to move things, um, especially as salaries get compressed for people who have been here a long time, to move them up to a place where we can retain them, and I also want to make a point, here's another little pain point too, you know, those support sta

ff, we've had a lot of turnover there , right? So, clerical and support staff in departments, there's just a lot of turnover, and the reason that it doesn't quite float up to the board level is it's not the police department, it's not IT, which the board has heard about, right? You guys have heard about the turnover in those divisions. So, I'm really heartened to hear that our first priority is adjusting those and moving those up, because that allows us to retain people that are, hon

estly, the folks that students meet when they walk in the front door, and I think that's great. ≫: Yeah. I appreciate that. Let me just comment that I don't want us to lose sight of the, I think the benefit that we're going to, um, realize because of the new job classification architecture. The, um, it's just human nature, I've seen it at every institution where I've worked, um, Human Resources will, typically , go to a lot of trouble to put people into job categories based on skill leve

l and job type and, um, with a certain, sort of, pay range and, over time, people on campus will try to gain that and, um, reclassify, really, with the intent of getting a pay increase. I mean, that's really what goes on, and I think the new job architecture, um, you know, once we really understand it, is going to give us a lot more fidelity and precision about how to get people in the right job classifications and in the architecture with market-based pay ranges, okay, for those partic

ular types of skill sets and, so, when we do, and if we do a good job over time of making sure that those individual boxes with those pay ranges adjust for market conditions going forward, and that's, you know, that's not an insignificant task, but it's very important, as long as we can keep those adjusted, the motivation for people changing, getting reclassified drops away, okay, and that becomes really , really important in the overall operation of things and, so, in terms of movement of

, um, jobs around campus, I mean , quite honestly, a lot of the, um, movement we see, particularly in, um, support level functions and some professional level job descriptions is we're stealing employees from each other. We're raiding each other's units, because one unit has a little more money than another unit has to pay and, so, we're, um, to some extent, we're creating our own problem . This, you know, what Mercer has provided us is not, it gives us an opportunity to solve the problem

, let me put it that way, and I think it's a great step forward. I'm excited about it. It, certainly, gives us targets to shoot for, and it gives us a manner in which we can track our progress toward those targets, which I think's important. ≫: I really appreciate Trustee Luna bringing up those pain points, and I agree with what she's saying. That's what I was trying to say earlier, not nearly as effectively as she did . I think, what I don't want us to do is take money for performanc

e and have to steal it to change the rate of a certain position. Not a person, but a position, and I think you're saying that, and that's what I'm agreeing with, so that you don't have to rob your pay for performance group of money for trying to get the inversions corrected, and it's on this board, and I think we're spending money with Mercer for that purpose, to make sure we fix that pain point, that positions and what those positions are worth and, then, move on with pay for performan

ce and, if somebody has earned the right to move to a new position from, say, associate to, um, whatever the next position is, then that's a different decision, and they get paid whatever that position says, and what we always did, you started at the bottom of the position and, then, there was a range, and you could work yourself all the way up. If you got so good that you were no longer a carpenter's helper, but you were a carpenter, you could move to carpenter and get paid within that ra

nge. So, that's what I'm hoping we can do here, so that the people who are way out on this metric here that we're looking at get addressed first, and that's what you said you were going to do and, then, from there, we'll just, hopefully, get better and better at it , so that the people making the decision about individuals have the resources to do it, because I don't think any board member here wants to make a decision about any individual, except you, and we'll do that one freely. (Laugh

ing. ) ≫: That's good. Yeah, I'm sure. Yeah, um, yeah, the tricky part, I agree a hundred percent with what you're saying, Johnny, the, um, the tricky part, in terms of, when you get down to the individual, it's almost impossible for any of us to truly separate in our minds the difference between performance and market when we go to make a recommendation on somebody's compensation , because they just naturally get mixed in together, and I think , it makes sense to me at least, that ind

ividuals that are performing at the highest level, whatever that is, I would hope they're well above the market, you know, here. I hope that's the case and, um, so , within any job category, you're going to have a range and, you know, how to actually implement that, then, on a departmental level , to make sure those factors are being balanced exactly right, it's just going to take a little effort on our part to figure that out. ≫: I think so. ≫: I would speak to that for a second. I w

as under the impression, we reclassified our entire workforce, went through the exact same process, and I would say there needs to be a heavy education component to that, if that's going to , especially if that's tied to compensation, to make sure that the employees understand what their reclassification means, what opportunities are available through that reclassification, um, and I know from experience, that can go well in areas and can go poorly in areas, so, the more you invest in th

e education component, I think you'll be better off. ≫: I absolutely concur with that. You know, compensation is a hot topic, right , and we've, I commend President Oldham and Dr. Stinson and Mercer for leaning into what can be a difficult thing to talk about, right? Here on campus, since the implementation is going to take time, it would be very helpful to make sure that, you know , we have great communications about what's happening with construction and what's happening with this

and, so, here's another opportunity to communicate regularly, um, about where we are and where those slider bars are, and thank you, President Oldham. ≫: I think it's a must, so, I agree. ≫: Is there anymore discussion? Good discussion. Thanks to each of you for your comments. Um, if there is not anymore discussion, first, I want to ask a question, Mr. Chairman, um, can we just refer to the page in here rather than me articulating -- ≫: I don't think so, but I will read it really

fast. How about that? I hear you. It's a very long, um, we have a proposed motion that would cover all of these comments, and I would like to read it into the record, so that everybody watching and people that don't see these, you know, not everybody gets to see these materials, but I would make this motion, and I'll do it really fast. ≫: Okay. The one question I have is the amount of money right here is not in this narrative that we have, but it is on the sheet. Does that matter?

≫: It's not, I'm sorry, it's not in where? ≫: It's not here in my narrative . ≫: The motion has, you're talking about the $15 an hour or a different amount of money? ≫: The 2 percent -- ≫: Oh, the, um, you know, it just says, it does say 2 percent retained in 2023 to 2024. I think we know that's 1. 7 million, I don't mind saying that, if you want me to add that into the motion. Would that be a problem? Okay, why don't I do that then? And I don't think we know for sure what the 3

percent will be until we, I guess, we -- ≫: It says it on the slides, and I'm okay either way, I just didn't know which would be the best way. ≫: Let's leave it without the numbers, then, because I always worry about adding in numbers, that I quote wrong or we get them wrong in the minutes or something like that. If we use the more general numbers, then we know what we've got . ≫: Okay. Make your motion. ≫: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As a member of the, sitting in as a member of th

e finance and audit business committee, I move to send the proposed compensation plan to the board and to place it on the board's regular agenda. The proposed compensation plan includes 2 percent retained in the fiscal year 23/24 to address the market study, and the bullets under that are retroactive to January 1st, 2024, bring all permanent employees up to or equal, excuse me, up to or exceeding $15 an hour, employees who are on or were on a performance improvement plan for fiscal year

2023 are ineligible , move the university as a whole toward the market median, and focus on areas of competitiveness. Then, I further move that we, um, the compensation plan further includes a 3 percent pool for recurring salary increases in fiscal year 24/25. Those, the sub-bullets to that are pending approval of the governor's fiscal year 24/ 25 budget, address the market study with merit component incorporated, effective July 1st, 2024, employees with satisfactory or better evalu

ation are eligible for a raise, employees who are on or were on a performance improvement plan for fiscal year 2024 are ineligible, employees hired prior to April 1st, 2024 and still employed on July 1st, 2024 are eligible, and a minimum award of 1 percent to a maximum award of 10 percent, and that's my motion. ≫: Very good job. Is there a second? ≫: Second. ≫: Thank you, Thomas. Okay, Secretary, please call the roll. ≫: Trustee Harper? ≫: I. ≫: Trustee Lynn? ≫: I. ≫: Trustee St

ites? ≫: I. ≫: Motion passes. ≫: Thank you. Next item is non-mandatory fees. Dr. Stinson will present the proposed housing rates and ready-to -teach specialized academic fee to become effective fall of 2024. ≫: Just as a, um, a reminder, I guess, or just to, um, since y'all don't deal with this stuff every day, so, non-mandatory fees are those fees that are not required of all students, they're based on selection students make, like, you know, living on campus, certain academic progr

ams, whether they're going to take online or on-ground courses, those types of things, so, it is based on the student's selection. They are not, non-mandatory fees are not subject to THEC's bonding rate. This board is to approve those fees, what they feel like is, um, the proper, um, level and, um, generally, we just make this request once a year for the board's approval. So, we do have two proposed non- mandatory fees. One is a bondification to an existing fee for our ready-to-teach.

This is in, um, the College of Education, is a specialized academic fee. It does apply to, both, undergraduates and graduates. The current fee for undergraduates is $165 per semester and $14 per credit hour. The proposal is to increase that fee to $250 per semester and $21 per credit hour . Graduate, the current fee is $165 per semester, $17 per credit hour , and the proposed is to increase it also to $250 per semester and $25 per credit hour. The College of Education proposes to u

se the additional resources as salary and fringe benefit increases for the employees that are involved in their teacher education program , specifically focused on student teaching and, um, the assistance that is needed there . It also, um, provides for performance-based assessment for, um, teacher candidates and, because the students are in different teaching sites , mileage for travel. Those are some examples of what they have proposed to use the fee on . The second, um, mandatory fee

that we are proposing is a 3 percent increase for the residence halls and, also , for village apartments. This would be used to offset rising operating costs, which includes salary increases for, um, the employees in that auxiliary enterprise operation. It also looked at , um, the increase allows us to stale remain competitive with the other Tennessee public universities, and I have given some data on our residence hall occupancy rates. Fall of 22, we were more than a hundred percent,

so we were trying to manage that . We went, maybe, a little too far in fall of 23, we were at 88. 3 percent, and I think Karen Lykins talked a little bit about how we're trying to manage that this year. Village continues to be a very popular, um, resident for our students, although freshmen are not placed into those apartments. So, we also looked at, for the residence halls, we looked at comparisons with the other universities. The first column is what, um, TTU proposes. That's what our

rates would look like on average for , with a 3 percent increase and, then, what they are currently and comparing those to the other LGIs and UT universities to see where we're competitive and not. Single traditional, several of the universities are higher than Tennessee Tech is on the single traditionals. We, um, are a little bit higher on the double traditional, although Austin Peay, UTK, and UT Chattanooga are higher than Tennessee Tech is. We also looked at village, those are apart

ments , so we did compare it with where our students typically would seek apartment housing, and we are, we remain very competitive with those two. I'd be glad to answer any questions . ≫: I was curious as to not so much the net number on the dormitories, but the delta between the single and the double is quite small in comparison to the other institutions. Is it just the physical nature of the buildings themselves and what you can offer? What's the reasoning behind that? ≫: We had

some conversations about that. It is something that we're looking at, because I think that we are, um, not as competitive with the double traditionals, because we haven't had the delta that different for the single, but some of our rooms are just designed for single and, so, we don't want to get those out of the market, but it is something we're looking at. Very good observation on that one. ≫: Is there capacity in both categories for students that want to make a choice to go in one or th

e other? I mean, the delta seems fairly small. I mean, you get your own room for what seems to be a pretty small amount . ≫: That is true. Like I said, it is something that we're looking at with our resident housing folks, to see, you know, does that make sense, because, you know, if you look at, for instance, Austin Peay, their single rate is quite a bit higher, whereas Tech's is not. So, that's what we're wanting to look at, and what are those, I know we have some rooms that are des

igned specifically for single, um, but, also , are we, um, is that rate, um, what we would like to have , if a student wants a single and it is a traditional, um, double, you know, what is the rate we should be charging on that. ≫: Is there a data point which we could review that? I mean, I would think that there's social benefits in kids having to learn to occupy the same space with one another and those sort of things , so, incentivizing them to do that, to share that space through fi

nancial incentives would make sense , if there's supporting evidence to push them in that direction. ≫: Exactly. That is something that we have, we are looking at and, um, made some adjustments last year, because they were much closer . Um, this time, I don't think housing, I think they wanted to do some more work on it before they proposed increasing the single. ≫: Okay. Thank you. ≫: Would you like for me to make a motion, Mr. Stites? ≫: Are you finished? ≫: Yep. ≫: Okay. Yes, m

a'am. Go right ahead. ≫: I move to send the proposed 3 percent housing rates increase and the $250 ready-to-teach specialized academic fee to be effective fall 2024 to the board for approval and to place it on the board's regular agenda. ≫: I second. ≫: The motion was made and seconded. Secretary, please call the roll. ≫: Trustee Harper? ≫: I. ≫: Trustee Lynn? ≫: I. ≫: Trustee Stites? ≫: I. ≫: Motion passes. ≫: The next item is the tuition and mandatory fees. Dr. Stinson will

present those to us for 2024/2025. ≫: I think we actually need a motion on the, um, res halls also. ≫: It was included. They were in the same motion. I'll read it to you again, just to be sure you got what you needed, but what I read was I move to send the proposed 3 percent housing rates increase and the $250 ready-to-teach specialized academic fee to be effective fall 2024 to the board for approval . Does that cover you? ≫: That is exactly right. I didn't get my microphone turned

off early enough to hear what you said . I apologize. (Laughing. ) ≫: The next item, tuition and mandatory fees , is a for-information item only. So, what we, um, are presenting here for you all's information is to look at the potential revenues that will be generated for fall and spring semester of 24/25 based on, um, tuition increases ranging from 1 to 4 percent. We are, I have presented information on 1 to 4 percent, because that is the planning range that the, um, THEC commissioner

s voted on in November. It is not their bonding range, because that bonding range will be voted on in May, but, um, just for you all's information, and the 1 to 4 percent, that category, actually, it was zero to 4 percent would, um, be the tuition increase and the mandatory fee increase. Tuition increase at 1 percent, 685,000, at 4 percent, it would be $2,700,000 and, with our mandatory fees, and those are fees that every student has to pay, 1 percent is the $123,000 and, um, 4 percent

at $457,000. We also, um, went ahead and calculated the potential cost to students per semester at each one of those increase levels. ≫: I, personally, find this really helpful. So, just for thinking about it, I mean, you're not asking us to do anything with this today, but as we think about salary increases going forward and what that's going to take and what have you, to Dr. Luna's question earlier, I think this is really helpful, to think about what the impact is on our students .

≫: And we didn't have, um, you know, the cost that we, um, need to address and, um, part of that, we have, um, we will have, um, the state appropriations. With the state appropriations, for the salary increases , we would still need to be able to get up to $1,600,000. Considering the other inflationary costs, we're looking at $3.8 million. So, um, could be pretty significant. ≫: May I ask a question about tuition increases? So, I know there's a few of us who are fairly recent to the

board. What's, maybe, the last three or four years of tuition increases looking like? Because I feel like we went at least one year without a tuition increase. Where are we with that? ≫: So, um, two years ago, we did not have a tuition increase at all. This past fall, fall of 23, we did have a 3 percent increase . ≫: Any other questions? Okay, there's no action required, so, proceed on to disclosed project modification . ≫: This project that I am presenting for the committee's consi

deration was actually disclosed to you in March of, um, 2022 as a renovation to a, um, facility at our, um, Shiply Farm, a barn that was going to be renovated to make it into an ag, engineering, and technology academic facility. We, um, after approval by the, um, by this committee and the board, we did move that forward and, um, as we got into design, we found out that it was going to be much more expensive, about $500,000 more expensive to renovate this facility than to actually demo i

t and build a new facility. So, that's what we are proposing, is a revision to what we had originally told you we were going to do, to actually move to demoing the existing facility and, then, um, actually build a new facility that meets the needs of this particular, um, program. It is an ag, technology, innovation center and lab. ≫: Any questions? ≫: I'd like to point out to my Vice Chair, Trustee Rose, that I'm going to make a motion about an ag building here. I move to approve the

disclosed project modification and place it on the board's regular agenda. ≫: Is there a second? ≫: Second. ≫: Thank you. Secretary, please call the roll. ≫: Trustee Harper? ≫: I. ≫: Trustee Lynn? ≫: I. ≫: Trustee Stites? ≫: I. ≫: Motion passes. ≫: Thank you. Agenda item number ten, naming opportunity, and Dr. Oldham will present this naming opportunity. ≫: Yeah. What's before you today, board, is, um, to name this, um, new laboratory for agriculture to the, um, significant do

nation provided by Randall and Marjorie Warden. So, it would be named the Randall and Marjorie Warden Agriculture Engineering Technology Laboratory. So, it's my pleasure to, um, make that recommendation to the board for your approval. ≫: Are there any questions? ≫: Can you just tell us who those folks are and what their role has been? Do you know? Or, maybe, Kevin could tell us. ≫: Yeah. I probably need to get -- ≫: Kevin? Or here comes Claire. Kevin looked up, like, what am

I supposed to talk about? ≫: I'm sorry, I did not hear your question. ≫: Can you tell us and, maybe, you don't know, but do you know who Randall and Marjorie Warden are and what their role was , why they wanted to name this building? ≫: I think -- ≫: I'm sorry, Dean, I didn't see you back there. ≫: Good morning. Um, Marjorie and Randall Warden were graduates of our program. He was very successful, went on to start a major company in the Midwest. They bought it out, and he is now i

n San Antonio, and it's pertinent to have this conversation, because there's a professor, Larry Clig, who, unfortunately, just passed away, but it was because of his mentorship to Randall Warden when he was a student here that he wanted to give that donation, was because of Larry Clig, and Larry Clig just passed. So, that's what his motivation was. He cares about the students, and he wants to see increased enrollment, and we did name it ag, engineering, and technology, so, I put both th

ose two names together . ≫: Thank you. ≫: Just a quick question. Um, I'm not against Randall and Marjorie Warden , so, please, don't take my question wrong, but, um, we have many buildings, and we have some buildings with multiple names on them, but we also have historically Henderson Hall and other names like that. Would we entertain just the Warden Agricultural Engineering and Technology building, or do we really want Randall and Marjorie as apart of that? Again, I know, I'm not

trying to stir the pot, but, still, it's, you know -- ≫: Yeah, it's a really good question, and I don't know that we have arrived at a true standard on naming opportunities. I think it's, certainly, not unusual for , um, couples, in this case, to want both members to be recognized officially. You know, what we actually put on the building could vary, I guess, but, um, you know, I was not privy to the, um, conversations or the negotiations around this gift, so, I don't know exactly what

was promised , but my assumption is that, um, this is what was, um, determined through that negotiation . So, I, in this particular case, I would honor it . ≫: I think, more recently, and I don't know if this is a trend or if it's just us, but I think, more recently, we've been a little broader with our naming. For instance, we had the Mark, I think it's the Mark L. burnett Fitness Center. I believe the nursing school is the Robert and Gloria Bell Nursing School, and we have a Millard

oakly and an Oakly Hall, but we have a Millard oakly something, I think. I'm not sure, but anyway, I think that, um, I think it's good to, if the donors are willing to put their names on it, I think that's nice, so that it makes it feel a little more personal than just somebody's last name. I don't know. When we have a Wilmore Hall, we can figure out which Wilmore it is. We sure don't want to confuse you with other Wilmores, because there's other Wilmores in the Tech history, aren't

there? ≫: Wilmore will be just fine for me. (Laughing. ) ≫: But I kind of like this, myself. ≫: Yeah. ≫: Is there room for, sort of, a marketing approach? Where the official record name is the longer version, but , yet, for, you know, names on buildings and, you know, perhaps, some printed material, that it be redacted to something that's a little bit more digestible for the student and visitor? ≫: That really was my thought. I mean, I had a history class in Henderson Hall, and I'd s

ay, where you going? Talking to your friends, where you going? Henderson Hall. Just, I don't know, Warden, or a name -- ≫: We still say Bell Hall here, and it has both their names on the front. ≫: That's why, I just thought I'd mention it. So, I mean, like I said, I'm not against it, I'm just , it just seems, maybe, it's something to consider, maybe, in the future when we have these negotiations, like you mentioned, President. ≫: Absolutely. I will point out that, um, what we put

on the building and what the students call it are, often, very much two different things. (Laughing. ) ≫: Any other questions? ≫: Would you like for me to make a motion? ≫: Yes, ma'am, if you would, please. ≫: I move to approve the naming of the Randall and Marjorie Warden laboratory and to place it on the board's regular agenda . ≫: Second. ≫: Thank you for that. A motion and a second. Secretary, please call the roll. ≫: Trustee Harper? ≫: I. ≫: Trustee Lynn? ≫: I. ≫: Trustee

Stites? ≫: I. ≫: Motion passes. ≫: Thank you. The next item on our agenda is the report of audit activity. Deanna Metts will present and review the report of the internal audit's activities for December 22nd through December 23rd. 2023. ≫: Thank you. This report's required by state statute, and it is in your book for your review and, um, it's just review, there's no action required, and I'll be happy to answer any questions you might have about those activities. ≫: Can you remind

us, this is Jeanette , can you remind us how units get selected for audit? Is it a random draw? I just want to figure out how to stay off this list forever. (Laughing. ) ≫: There's the first criteria, the people who want to stay off the list go to the top of the list , right? (Laughing. ) ≫: Well, some people are just special. I'm sorry. No, we have a real specific way that we select them. The whole area of the audit universe, I try to consider just the auditable units within the u

niversity and, then, I look at them based on past experience and questionnaires that I've sent out about their level of internal control, um, how sensitive they are, government relation in general , um, political ramifications. I also look at the last time they were audited, if ever and, then, we will look at the changes that have happened within the unit, um, major directions in program or changes to the leadership or changes in dollars that they've brought in or taken down . We will

look at the dollar value or the level of activity of that unit. So, I take all those, I give every one of them factors and, then, run them through a formula and come out with a list, but, then, I go up to management and say, hey, what do you think? And, so, I take that information and, then, use that information to help weight them further , so that they either rise to the top or just fall down. So, we don't have many audit hours, so, as you can see, we will never get but two or three

done a year and, then, even with that, um, if something is sensitive and needed by the university, that will take precedence over my evaluation of what was risky back when I did it last fall . So, if you'll see, at the very end of that report, there was some time-sensitive issues this year during 2023 that occurred that needed to be addressed right then. So, some of the audits we had planned did not make it through 2023, because everything takes time. So, we will make that judgment, an

d I also always confer with the President before I add a major audit to it, and that's how I decide. ≫: Any questions? Next item is, um, notice of responsibilities preventing, detecting, and reporting fraud, waste, and abuse. If I do not read this next statement to the board, then they come knocking on my door, so, please listen . State law requires the audit committee to formally reiterate on a regular basis to the board, management, and staff their responsibilities for preventing,

detecting , and reporting fraud, waste, and abuse . Accordingly, a notice of responsibility has been added in diligent for the committee members to review. I hope everybody has read that and has memorized it. Otherwise, Dean is going to come visit you on a weekend , late at night. Okay, there's no action required for this, and I think I have properly read that to the board. The next item is the state audit, and Dr. Stinson will present us the results of the state audit. (Laughing. ) ≫

: All right, so, we have, um, received the, um, audited financial statements for fiscal year , um, 23. We did have an unmodified opinion, and we had no findings. So, I am very glad to report that. So far, we are the only university that they have released that had no findings . ≫: Makes sense to me. ≫: Because we have a good audit Chair, right? (Laughing. ) ≫: I don't like sitting there, answering those questions to those people. I don't even know them, they ask me a lot of real pr

ivate stuff . Okay, um, here we go. I think that'll be the adjournment of our open session. Madam Chair, we'll, um, as soon as everybody that's not supposed to be here leaves the room, we'll start the private section. ≫: We'll reconvene at 1:30. Is that right? Is that right, 1:30? Okay.