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Editor’s Note: After each Board of Trustees meeting, Western Today provides a recap of decisions and discussion.

 

Trustees Approve 2019-20 Operating Budget, Tuition Rates

The Western Washington University Board of Trustees on Friday approved �±���ٱ����’s 2019-20 annual operating budget, which includes a 2.4 percent tuition increase for resident undergraduate students during the upcoming academic year.

The tuition increase, which will be reflected in fall tuition at Western, means an undergraduate student will pay $146 more a year. Resident undergraduate students made up about 84 percent of students at Western during the last academic year.

For the 2019-20 academic year, tuition rates also will increase 5 percent for non-resident undergraduates, and 4.5 percent for resident graduate, non-resident graduate, and resident and non-resident MBA students.

Also, 2019-20 tuition for the clinical doctorate (Au.D) program was reduced 17.2 percent for resident students and 20.3 percent for non-resident students due to a concern about the program tuition compared to other peer programs.

Even with the increases, Western tuition rates in nearly all categories still remain lower than most other public universities in the state.

Included with the

�±���ٱ����’s totals approximately $190.289 million. The Legislative session, which ended in April, provided the following new funding for Western:

• $3.0 million ($8.8 million for the biennium) in salary and benefit increases for all employees;

• $1.7 million  ($3.4 million for the biennium) solely to increase access to science, technology, engineering and mathematics degrees, which may include expanding prehealth care capacity, creating an energy science and technology bachelor of science degree, and expanding electrical engineering degrees;

 • $490,000 ($1.3 million for the biennium) representing inflation on the previous years’ tuition backfill;

• $133,000 ($266,000 for the biennium) for maintenance and operations for new capital projects.

 

The vice presidents, in consultation with the college deans and the president, recommended these additional items, which were included in the budget approved by the trustees:

 • $715,000 ($4.6 million for the biennium) as a beginning step toward addressing operating budget gaps in the overall Academic Affairs budget;

• $250,000 ($500,000 for the biennium) targeted to build awareness and support for a pipeline of qualified enrollments in two key out-of-state markets: Colorado and Northern California;

• $500,000 for the biennium to address IT networking infrastructure needs; and

• $100,000 ($300,000 for the biennium) representing the beginning of a multi-year incremental approach to bringing the teaching assistants stipend rate in strategic alignment with �±���ٱ����’s peers.

Linda Teater, director of Budget at Western, presented budget information. Trustees, President Sabah Randhawa and Rich Van Den Hul, vice president for Business and Financial Affairs, all thanked Teater for her eight years of service at Western. She is leaving Western after accepting a position as executive director of Budgeting and Financial Analysis at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock.

The trustees also heard a from Randhawa, Becca Kenna-Schenk, executive director of Government Affairs; Van Den Hul, and Rick Benner, director of Facilities Development and Capital Budget.

Kenna-Schenk said that a highlight of the legislative session, which began Jan. 14 and ended on April 28, was passage of the Workforce Education Investment Act sponsored by state Rep. Drew Hansen. This legislation creates a permanent, dedicated funding source for state higher education investments.  Appropriations from the account total $373.8 million for the 2019-2021 biennium, and new revenues are forecasted to total nearly $1 billion over four years through a tiered and targeted increase in the state’s business and occupation tax.

Through that legislation, by the 2020-2021 academic year, the current waitlist for the State Need Grant, which was renamed Washington College Grant, will be eliminated and all eligible students will be guaranteed to receive a grant.

“This was the year legislators stepped up to support higher education,” Kenna-Schenk said.

State funding approved by the Legislature for Western capital projects during the 2019-21 biennium included $60 million for construction of the new Interdisciplinary Sciences Building. In addition, the legislature also approved $2 million for predesign and partial design of the new Electrical Engineering/Computer Science Building. This funding includes a proviso that at least 10 percent of the total cost of the project must be paid from private funds.

The remaining legislative capital funding, consisting of $2.5 million in general obligation bonds and $11,960,000 in local funds, is for upgrading, preserving, modernizing and maintaining facilities and infrastructure throughout campus. Western also received authority to finance up to $9,950,000 in a state-issued certificate of participation sale for the proposed new Consolidated Academic Support Services Facility but this project currently is on pause due to insufficient operating budget revenues.

 

Remembrance of Noémi Ban

President Randhawa reflected on , a longtime resident of Bellingham, teacher, community educator and Holocaust survivor who passed away on June 7 at the age of 96. Ban spoke often on �±���ٱ����’s campus and in the community.

“As I was sitting at Noemi’s memorial service and thinking of her, the picture that emerged for me was of a community elder, full of wisdom and compassion,” Randhawa said. “Given Noemi’s dreadful experiences during the Holocaust, it would have been easy for her to become bitter and vindictive about life and fellow humans.

“Rather, Noemi embraced life, love, compassion, and understanding. She became an educator about the horrors of the Holocaust, so we can learn from history. Speaker after speaker at the memorial service talked about how she promoted shared humanity and a message of hope and tolerance.

“Sadly, these traits – hope, tolerance, compassion, understanding – are in short supply these days, whether in dialogues at the local level or at the national level. Noemi’s life is a wonderful reminder that it does not have to be this way,” Randhawa said.

 

In other business, the trustees:

• At a Friday morning breakfast, recognized .
• Recognized scholarship recipients.
• Recognized the service of .
• Heard a report from McNeel Jantzen, Faculty Senate president, who discussed activities of the Faculty Senate. Randhawa and trustees thanked Jantzen for her service as Faculty Senate president.
• Heard a report from Associated Students President Millka Solomon. Randhawa and trustees thanked Solomon for her service as AS president over the past year. In addition, Levi Eckman, AS vice president for Academic Affairs, briefed trustees on the successful launch of the new Student Senate.
• Discussed The trustees discussed with Van Den Hul and Teater optimal levels of institutional reserves, given �±���ٱ����’s role as a state-funded public university.
• Heard an update on the Bellingham waterfront project from Donna Gibbs, �������� vice president for University Relations and Marketing. Gibbs said that a small working group that includes Western and Port officials are making considerable progress in shifting collaborative planning efforts to a public-private partnership model that could potentially provide a mix of private sector industries and developers, public agencies and a multi-institutional higher education presence. The goal is a set of facilities that would both expand the employer base and provide potential opportunities for applied learning and integrated research in undergraduate and graduate programs. They are developing a framework plan that the working group will present to the Port Commission and the trustees in August.
• Heard a presentation of the final report of the and discussed next steps and the implementation of the plan. Presenters were Van Den Hul, Brian Burton, associate vice president for Academic Affairs, and Stephen Shields, Constructive Endeavors Consulting.
• Approved awarding a for the amount of $546,900 (base bid) for the construction contract to construct lab upgrades at Biology.
• Approved awarding a , for the amount of $1,849,000 (base bid, plus alternate #2) for the construction contract to construct the Birnam Wood Roof Replacement Phase 2.
• Approved a in the field south of SMATE, to the contract with Lydig Construction, Spokane for the amount of $1,742,000 (and associated sales tax), bringing the contract to a total of $3,812,000 (excluding associated sales tax). This will allow for demolition of Highland Hall and building of the new displacement parking area in the field south of SMATE to occur during late July to early September, when much of the campus community is on break.
• Approved an increase to the total Project. During the course of the project, the project Steering Committee requested the following additional scope to the project that is directly adjacent to the Multicultural Center area: welcome desk, nana wall, main lobby stairs skylight, wood ceilings, and a bookstore glass partition in lieu of a grille. The cost of these additional/replacement items total $427,462.
• Approved Spring Quarter degrees.
• Meeting documents are available at the
• The dates for the next regular meeting of the Board of Trustees are Aug. 22 and 23.