The official minutes of the University of South Carolina Board of Trustees are maintained by the Secretary of the Board. Certified copies of minutes may be requested by contacting the Board of Trustees’ Office. Electronic or other copies of original minutes are not official Board of Trustees' documents.
Board of Trustees
August 10, 2001
The University of South Carolina Board of Trustees met Friday, August 10, 2001, at 2:10 p.m. in the Carolina Plaza Board Room.
Members present were: Mr. Mack I. Whittle, Jr., Chairman; Mr. Herbert C. Adams, Vice Chairman; Mr. Arthur S. Bahnmuller; Mr. James Bradley; Mr. Alexander English; Mr. A.C. Fennell, III; Dr. C. Edward Floyd; Mr. Samuel R. Foster, II; Mrs. Helen C. Harvey; Mr. William C. Hubbard; Mr. Toney J. Lister; Mr. Miles Loadholt; Mr. Robert N. McLellan; Mr. J. DuPre Miller; Ms. Darla D. Moore (via telephone); Mr. Michael J. Mungo; Mr. M. Wayne Staton; Mrs. Inez M. Tenenbaum; Mr. John C. von Lehe, Jr.; and Mr. Othniel H. Wienges. The faculty representative, Professor Caroline Strobel, and the student representative, Mr. Corey Ford, were both present.
Others present were: President John M. Palms; Secretary Thomas L. Stepp; Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs and Provost Jerome D. Odom; Vice President and Chief Operating Officer J. Lyles Glenn; Vice President for Research William C. Harris; Vice President for Information Technology and Chief Information Officer William F. Hogue; Vice President and Chief Financial Officer Richard W. Kelly; Vice President for Human Resources Jane M. Jameson; Vice President for Student and Alumni Services Dennis A. Pruitt; Vice Provost and Executive Dean for Regional Campuses and Continuing Education Chris P. Plyler; Vice President of Medical Affairs and Dean of the School of Medicine Larry R. Faulkner; Interim Vice Provost and Dean, Libraries and Information Systems, John N. Olsgaard; General Counsel Walter (Terry) H. Parham; Chancellor of USC Aiken Thomas L. Hallman; Chancellor of USC Spartanburg John C. Stockwell; Dean of USC Beaufort Jane T. Upshaw; Dean of USC Lancaster Joseph Pappin; Dean of USC Salkehatchie Ann Carmichael; Dean of USC Sumter Leslie C. Carpenter; Director of Athletics Michael B. McGee; Executive Director of the Alumni Association Marsha A. Cole; Director of Facilities Planning and Construction and University Architect Charles G. Jeffcoat; Director of Planning Services, Facilities Planning and Construction, Donna Collins; Associate Budget Director and Senior Analyst, Office of Budget and Finance, William Bragdon; Director of Governmental and Community Relations Shirley D. Mills; State Legislator and Associate Professor, USC Salkehatchie, William K. Bowers; retiring faculty members: John Lopicccolo, College of Journalism and Mass Communications, and Fredric L. Splittgerber, College of Education; University Legislative Liaison John D. Gregory; Campus Minister, Palm Campus Ministry, The Reverend Tom H.B. Wall; guest of Trustee Arthur S. Bahnmuller, Paul Joseph; Mrs. Cynthia Lister; Director of the Office of Public Affairs Russell McKinney; and members of the media.
Chairman Whittle stated that notice of the meeting had been posted and the press notified as required by the Freedom of Information Act; the agenda and supporting materials had been circulated; and a quorum was present to conduct business.
Chairman Whittle welcomed everyone present and acknowledged the retiring members of the faculty who had been awarded honorary titles during the June Board meeting. Chairman Whittle thanked the faculty for their service to the University of South Carolina.
Chairman Whittle invited those present to introduce themselves. Mr. McKinney introduced members of the media who were in attendance. The Reverend Tom H.B. Wall delivered the invocation.
Mr. Mungo asked that Board members remember in their prayers S.C. 2nd District Congressman Floyd D. Spence who was very ill.
Chairman Whittle stated there were personnel matters with respect to Gift Naming Opportunities that were appropriate for Executive Session.
Mr. Mungo moved to enter Executive Session and Mr. Bradley seconded the motion. The vote was taken, and the motion carried.
The following persons were invited to remain: Dr. Palms, Mr. Stepp, Dr. Odom, Mr. Glenn, Dr. Pruitt, Ms. Jameson, Mr. Parham, Dr. Plyler, Mr. Kelly, Dr. Harris, Dr. Hogue, Dr. Hallman, Dr. Stockwell, Dr. McGee, Mr. McKinney, Mr. Gregory, Ms. Warren, and Ms. Tweedy.
Return to Open Session
There were no other additions, deletions, or corrections to the minutes; therefore, they stood approved as distributed.
The Boiler Replacement - Phase I project was the first of a four-phase plan to replace three aging boilers with new high efficiency boilers in the East Energy Facility. The project had been delayed due to a protest from the high bidder and a subsequent appeal of that decision to the South Carolina Procurement Review Panel by the low bidder. A final ruling had been issued in late February, 2001. Revisions had been made and the project was now out for bids. The project should be awarded in mid-August. Based on a possible three month delivery schedule, installation may need to be postponed until after the upcoming heating season. The project budget was $942,047 with an estimated annual savings of $189,679.
The Campus Wide Lighting Retrofit - Phase I project was the first of a four-phase plan to replace the lighting in campus buildings with more efficient fixtures. Occupancy sensors will be installed in selected areas as well. Buildings will be prioritized based on energy usage. Project design was near completion and actual installation was expected to begin this month with all work completed by December, 2001. The work will be performed by one of the current Indefinite Delivery Contract (IDC) contractors and would involve installing occupancy sensors and lighting control panels in The Darla Moore School of Business facility. The project budget was $242,065 with an estimated annual savings of $41,028.
The Energy Management System Expansion - Phase I project was the first of a five phase plan to expand and automate the energy management and HVAC systems in the East and West Energy Facilities, The Thomas Cooper Library, The Darla Moore School of Business, the Blatt P. E. Center, and a small portion of the Russell House. The system controlled the main HVAC systems in campus buildings connected to the central energy facilities. All facilities should be completed by December, 2001. The project budget was $600,000 with an estimated annual savings of $73,819.
The Electrical Infrastructure Upgrade - Phase I project was the first of a three-phase plan to upgrade the electrical infrastructure on campus. Work will include the replacement of aging wiring and switchgear in the high voltage electrical distribution system. An in-house high voltage electrical crew had completed approximately 90 percent of this work during the previous Christmas vacation period. The remaining work should be completed by December, 2001. The project budget was $273,000.
The Steam Infrastructure Upgrade - Phase I project was the first phase of a five phase plan to upgrade the steam infrastructure on campus. Work will include the replacement of aging steam and condensate piping in the steam distribution system, as well as the replacement of insulation, pumps, valves, steam traps and pipe fittings. Mechanical Indefinite Delivery Contracts (IDC) have been put in place to cover the installation of this work. Some of the project work had already been completed and the remaining work in this phase should be completed by December, 2001. The project budget was $200,000 with an estimated annual savings of $5,600.
Project Increase - Medford Library - USC Lancaster: Administrative approval was obtained to increase the existing budget for this project by $23,217.25 funded with Capital Improvement Bonds. The transfer of the balance of funds from a completed project (Hubbard Hall Renovation) permitted the increase of additional funding for this project. This resulted in a project budget of $4,023,217.25 funded totally with Capital Improvement Bonds.
Thomas Cooper Library Renovation/Rare Books Facility: A project had been established for a feasibility study for a Rare Books Facility at the Thomas Cooper Library. The study will identify the program, location and design of the proposed facility which will be either an addition to the existing library or a freestanding building connected to the library. The proposed facility will provide specialized secure stack areas and climate control to preserve the University's valuable rare books and special research collection. Public space and work areas will be provided as well, so that the materials may be fully utilized. The established project will allow for the selection of an architectural firm and will fund the initial architectural/engineering work. The project budget was $100,000, funded with Institutional Funds. When the scope of the work was determined, the budget established, and additional funding identified, the project will be presented to the Buildings and Grounds Committee and the Board of Trustees for approval.
President's House: A comprehensive study of the President's house was being conducted to identify areas that were in need of repair, maintenance, and preservation. Scheduling major repair work was difficult because the house was constantly occupied. A rare opportunity of unencumbered access to the residence should be available between the pending retirement of Dr. Palms and the occupancy of the next President. The project will be presented to the Buildings and Grounds Committee and the Board of Trustees for consideration when the study was completed, a project budget established, and funding identified.
Sumwalt College Renovations: The USC NanoCenter will be housed in the Sumwalt College building and will initially occupy 20,000 square feet. Preliminary investigation and planning for the project had begun as renovations to the building were required. When the scope of the work and the budget had been established, the project will be presented to the Buildings and Grounds Committee and the Board of Trustees for consideration. Funding for the NanoCenter project will be from a state allocation.
The following items required consideration by the Board this day:
On behalf of the Buildings and Grounds Committee, Mr. Loadholt moved approval of the Master Land Acquisition Plan renewal for a period of five years as described in the materials distributed for this meeting. Mr. English seconded the motion. The vote was taken, and the motion carried.
In addition, the project budget must be increased $650,000 to cover unforeseen costs which had occurred in the foundation work. An escalator and platform seating had been included in the project at costs of $188,000 and $185,000 respectively. The City of Columbia had requested that an existing city sewer line be relocated at a cost of $240,000. An agreement between the University and the City had stipulated the reimbursement of this cost to the University.
The authorization of the necessary change orders was in process and the University was requesting an immediate Arena budget increase of $1,940,000 to avoid delay in the construction of the facility. Funding for the budget increase will be $1.7 million from the University Athletics Department, which will ultimately be provided from the revenues of the sale of four suites at $500,000 each. The Athletics Department guaranteed the availability of the $1.7 million from their existing revenues and reserve funds. The City of Columbia will contribute $240,000 for the relocation of the sewer line.
On behalf of the Buildings and Grounds Committee, Mr. Loadholt moved approval to increase the project budget by $1,940,000 to be funded with $1.7 million from the University's Athletics Department and $240,000 from the City of Columbia. This would result in a total project budget of $55,940,000 funded with Athletics Revenue Bonds, State Capital Improvement Bonds, Accommodation Tax Revenues, Suite Lease, State Capital Reserve Funds, State Supplemental Funds, Sales and Services, and the City of Columbia as described in the materials distributed for this meeting. Mr. Bahnmuller seconded the motion. The vote was taken, and the motion carried.
During the Executive Committee meeting earlier this day, the Committee approved the renewal of the Carolina Piedmont Foundation Contract.
Dr. Floyd also discussed future plans of the Board Legislative Priorities Committee.
The following two items were approved for recommendation to the Board:
Mr. Mungo moved approval of the delay of the implementation of the APOGEE fee increase until Fall, 2002 as described in the materials for this meeting. Mr. Bahnmuller seconded the motion. The vote was taken, and the motion carried.
Mr. McLellan moved approval of the promotion of Roy J. Schwartzman to Associate Professor with tenure in the Department of Theatre, Speech and Dance, College of Liberal Arts, effective January, 2001, as described in the materials distributed for this meeting. Mr. Bradley seconded the motion. The vote was taken, and the motion carried.
Mr. Bradley moved approval to remove the name of Elaine L. Chao from the table. Mrs. Harvey seconded the motion. The vote was taken, and the motion carried.
Mr. Mungo moved approval of the Presidential Candidate Search Committee Bylaws Amendment as presented. Mr. Bradley seconded the motion. The vote was taken, and the motion carried.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Tonight we look forward to having you for dinner in honor of Elaine Chao. And tomorrow, we hold our summer commencement exercises for the University's eight campuses. We will award 96 associate degrees; 768 baccalaureate degrees; 483 master's degrees; 3 law degrees; and 76 doctoral degrees. The University is providing our state and nation with very well-educated graduates.
At the same time, all summer long, we have been preparing for the incoming classes in all of our colleges. The campus is in an improved condition. If you walk around, the grass on the Horseshoe has never been greener, never been thicker. And the other campuses have done the same.
Our enrollment goals have been met. The size of the class will be approximately 3,000 as designed. If we had known we were going to have a winning football season and going to a bowl game, we would have cut back on our expectations of the yield because yield is a little bit higher than we expected and that is why we have a larger class than expected. The quality of the class will be equivalent to last year's. The class will enroll slightly more resident students and will be as diverse as last year's class. Our scholarship and Honors College profiles will resemble past years, with only minor modifications.
Move-in day for new students is August 18 and I do want to thank Dennis Pruitt and the Physical Plant staff for the tremendous amount of work in holding all of these orientations all summer long, and in having the campus look so good. Also, most all of the class schedules finalized for our incoming students is really remarkable.
The New Students' Convocation is August 19, 2001. It is a ceremonial occasion with all Deans present and Chairman Whittle will be there, also.
I do want to mention that with the increase in the freshman class, our overall enrollment has not increased because, as you know, we planned a decrease in our graduate enrollment and an increase of our undergraduate enrollment. Next month we will have a thorough review again, as we did last year, of enrollment management. The enrollment in the various colleges is part of our strategic planning to bring you up to date and to set the goals for next year.
I want to thank the Board members. Many of you have worked in recruiting this outstanding class. Many of you hosted dinners in your communities for scholarship recipients. In addition, the Board has provided funds for scholarships. We appreciate your generosity and other development efforts that build these programs.
The scholarship program has continued to work extraordinarily well. This last year, 2000-2001, we had a British Marshall Scholarship, a Udall Scholarship, a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship, six Rotary Scholarships, three National Security Education Program Scholarships, and three Goldwater Scholarships. As of today, 37 awards and more than $460,000 for advanced academic study have been won by our students this year. I cannot tell you what an academic impact, as far as reputation, the students receiving these awards are having nationally when so many other students from other colleges and universities are competing for these same awards. Our students are increasingly successful.
We expect our new students to follow their predecessors in their achievement at the University. USC has named 40 of the nation's top high school seniors as recipients of our most prestigious award--the McNair Scholarship. Nine finalists were also named. This is the first year we have had a class of 20 McNair Scholars and, of course, we have the Carolina Scholars as well.
These students are coming to a university that last year increased its funding for sponsored programs and research to another record level. Two years in a row we are over the $100 million mark with $122.8 million in preliminary data for 2000-2001. This is the 19th consecutive year of research funding increases. There was an almost $1 million increase over last year. This can only be done by the faculty who are writing these proposals, the graduate students and undergraduate students who are involved with research and in the facilities that you helped provide. Even though the amount of the increase seems slight this year, the competition is fierce and we should congratulate our faculty who are doing everything that they can to raise the standards of this institution to an AAU level.
Also, our ability to get more funding from outside of the state has improved, since in-state funding for research has declined by nine percent. We made up for that by federal and out-of-state funding.
I want to speak a moment, before I conclude, about the proposed hosting of a bowl game in Columbia and touch on the University's reasons for its position. I want to tell you that this decision was taken with great seriousness, with thorough discussions; all aspects that we could bring to bear on this were evaluated.
I know most of you have seen the editorial in today's The State newspaper by our Athletics Director, Mike McGee. The reasons he indicates not to host a bowl game in Williams-Brice Stadium are those we voiced to the mayor last week as well. Because we understand the impact on revenues for the region and the state, we actively market Williams- Brice Stadium as a venue when it does not interfere with the normal athletic operations and functions of that facility. We have had religious gatherings and concerts. We have in the past encouraged use of the stadium by other teams for professional exhibition games, for South Carolina State University for its Palmetto Classic post-season play, and we offered use of the stadium to The Citadel after Hurricane Hugo.
However, this proposed bowl opportunity does not serve the University's best interests. We belong to the best football conference in America and in all likelihood the proposed bowl would bring to Columbia two non-SEC teams. Hosting a bowl game during that time would interfere with operations and practices in the event USC goes to another bowl game. The field, locker room arrangements, etc., would be necessary and I am sure we all know they are going to be used to prepare for Carolina to go to another bowl game. And, if USC does travel to a bowl game, we hope that our fans would go with us. The revenue spent on a Christmas Day bowl game here in this city would jeopardize the ability of our fans to follow the Gamecocks.
In order to host a Christmas Day bowl game, we would have to require numerous personnel to sacrifice their holiday break and, most importantly, time with their families on Christmas Day. There are also concerns within the Southeastern Conference and, I understand, even within the NCAA. There has been a discussion as to whether or not a Christmas Day bowl could just be moved from one area of the country to another without approval of the NCAA. So, for these and many other reasons, we decided to decline the opportunity to have that bowl game in Columbia.
Finally, I appreciate your attending last night's session with the Washington Advisory Group. I intended to be there but I was at the NCAA Board of Directors' meeting in Indianapolis and I was caught there by the weather.
But I was in Washington, D.C., the day before and met with Erich Bloch. He and I discussed their report and the next steps that might be taken with their observations. Their observations will be integrated into the Strategic Directions and Initiatives Committee chaired by Jerry Odom and they will also be considered in light of the recommendations we received from the SACS reaccreditation report. I have met with President John Casteen of the University of Virginia to talk about our responses to the recommendations of that report. So, all of this needs to be integrated together.
As you know, the challenge of these efforts are to stay focused on the goals of the University that the Board of Trustees, you, and the administration working together, endorsed at last year's retreat. The strategy for meeting these goals and those submitted by the faculty last year remain our principal objectives. We must continue to advance the University toward our overall goal of excellence, as set by the standards of AAU institutions. I appreciate your constant participation in that endeavor and I am looking forward to the results of this year's efforts.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Dr. Strobel thanked the Board of Trustees for this presentation noting that the faculty had an exciting year ahead. Dr. Strobel challenged Board members to encourage state legislators to support more funding for higher education in order to advance the University's goal of becoming a research institution. "If this state is going to move forward economically, you have to have great research universities and we will have to move forward on that front for the state and we will need money to do it with." Dr. Strobel also noted that neighboring states were "good places to live" because their respective institutions of higher education had provided the catalyst for the enrichment of the populace. She hoped that South Carolina would be able to attract the "kind of industry it deserves" through a similar partnership with higher education.
There were no further matters to come before the Board of Trustees, and Chairman Whittle declared the meeting adjourned at 2:50 p.m.
Respectfully submitted,
Thomas L. Stepp
Secretary