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K-State Today

April 15, 2020

Kansas Board of Regents April meeting agenda items

Submitted by Communications and Marketing

The Kansas Board of Regents will meet virtually April 15 and 16. A livestream will be available for individuals to listen remotely. The board will consider the following agenda items related to Kansas State University during the meeting.

The Regents will review data for low-enrollment undergraduate programs at state universities. K-State has 11 programs below the minimum enrollment threshold. Of those, three programs are new and one is being phased out.

In response to recent COVID-19 related disruptions to scholarly work and teaching, the Regents will consider an exception to the tenure clock extension policy. The one-time systemwide exception would exclude COVID-19 related tenure-clock extensions from counting toward the two-extension limit prescribed in the policy.

The Regents will receive the fiscal year 2022 capital improvement requests and five-year plans for first reading. Capital improvement projects include new buildings, remodeling or alterations, annual maintenance and utility projects for which costs exceed $1 million. View a PDF of the projects.

Two systemwide building studies will be conducted as an initial step to evaluate state university facilities and gather data to support a potential deferred maintenance initiative. One study will assess current building conditions and the other will evaluate space utilization. The Regents will act on allocations from the Educational Building Fund to finance the studies. K-State's allocation of Educational Building Funds for the deferred maintenance studies is $839,453.

The Regents will act on distributions of the fiscal year 2021 Postsecondary Educational Institutions Unified Operating Grant, or block grant. The Legislature approved $11.9 million in 2020 Senate Bill 66 for state universities for fiscal year 2021. Distribution of funds is based upon the state universities' state general fund appropriations for fiscal year 2021, excluding appropriations specially designated for research. K-State's proposed distribution is approximately $3.3 million.

Provost Chuck Taber will present K-State's proposal to create the Institute of Global Food, Health, and Biosecurity. The institute will leverage existing academic and research strengths in food science and safety as well as health and well-being while at the same time developing new areas to meet the changing needs of today's workforce. Industry-sponsored research and new job creation are at the heart of this strategic initiative. The proposal is in response to the Kansas Legislature deferring to omnibus session consideration of funding for the institute.

Blake Flanders, Kansas Board of Regents president and CEO, will present an overview of the new board strategic plan.

The Legislature directed the Regents to create a comprehensive three-year, five-year and 10-year plan for higher education for the 2021 Legislature to consider. The Regents will create an advisory council to review the higher education delivery systems in Kansas and make recommendations to ensure education beyond high school is accessible to Kansans and aligns with the state's needs.

Agendas and complete meeting minutes are available online. For live updates on all Kansas Board of Regents meetings, follow @ksregents on Twitter.