Board of Regents to meet June 22-23; agenda includes tuition and fee increases

The Tennessee Board of Regents will meet in its regular quarterly session on Friday, June 23 – following a day of board committee meetings on Thursday – at Roane State Community College in Harriman, Tenn. The agenda includes student tuition and fee recommendations for the upcoming 2017-18 school year.

Committee meetings will start at 1 p.m. EDT June 22, beginning with the Committee on Finance and Business Operations, and run consecutively for the rest of the afternoon in this order: Committee on Personnel and Compensation; Academic Policies and Programs and Student Life; External Affairs, and Workforce Development.

The full Board of Regents will meet at 9:30 a.m. June 23. All meetings will be conducted in the O’Brien Building Theatre on the Roane State campus at 276 Patton Lane, Harriman. At 9 a.m., prior to the start of the full board meeting on Friday, Roane State President Chris Whaley will make a presentation about the college.  

The Finance and Business Operations Committee will review and consider TBR staff recommendations for student tuition and mandatory fees at colleges across the system.  Staff will recommend a 2.6 percent increase in tuition for in-state residents (called maintenance fees) at both community colleges and colleges of applied technology. Staff will recommend an increase in mandatory fees (fees paid by all full-time students) at only one college: a $22 per semester fee at Columbia State Community College to help finance a badly needed new 248-space parking garage at the college's rapidly growing Williamson County Campus.

Whatever action the committee takes on tuition and fees will go before the full board the next day for final approval and will go into effect with the college system’s fall semester in August. The committee will also consider the colleges’ operating budgets for fiscal year 2017-18.

Other items on the board and committee agendas include:

·      Tenure and promotion recommendations at the colleges.

·      Institutional requests for new or amended compensation plans.

·      Executive Incentive Compensation Plan payments.

·      President Emeritus contracts for the next year.

·      Proposed program terminations, modifications and implementations.

·      Proposed revisions of TBR policy on academic retention and readmission at the Tennessee Colleges of Applied Technology.

·      An overview of the new external affairs unit at the system office.

·      An overview of the new role of the Workforce Development Committee.

·      A report on transforming the Tennessee Transfer Pathways website.

·      A presentation by Regent Alex Fitzner, the board’s faculty representative, on shared governance on campuses.

·      Approval of a change in board bylaws to change the title of the executive head of each college of applied technology from director to president -- the same title as the heads of community colleges. The change is in title only and will not affect the job description, compensation, benefits or other condition of employment.

The complete agenda and supporting materials are posted on the TBR website at https://www.tbr.edu/board/june-2017-quarterly-board-meeting.

 All meetings are open to the public and media as observers. Anyone planning to attend should contact TBR Communications Director Rick Locker, at rick.locker@tbr.edu or 615-366-4417 by noon CDT June 21 to arrange access. The board meetings are also accessible for viewing via streaming video at https://www.tbr.edu/board/june-2017-quarterly-board-meeting