The 16th Meeting of ETSU’s Board of Trustees took place on Friday and contained vital information for the immediate and extended future of the university, as well as the community as a whole.
The meeting started at 1 p.m. on the Nov. 13 as a YouTube livestream with the establishment of a virtual quorum. Time for public comment and question was unavailable during the call, so communication was directed to the board email: trustees@etsu.edu.
Once the role was called, the agenda opened with the approval of the minutes from the Sep. 18 meeting as well as reports on committee meetings that had taken place beforehand.
Trustee Linda Latimer spoke on behalf of the Academic, Research and Student Success Committee, sharing that they had finalized and voted on changes to the spring 2021 academic calendar which has the semester beginning on Jan. 19. The campus will be closed on Jan. 18 in accordance with Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
Rather than a concentrated spring break, the five days afforded to students will instead be spread out throughout the semester. On Feb. 18 through 19, March 15 through 16 and April 14, classes will not take place, but the university will remain open. Classes will not meet and campus will be closed on April 2 in observance of Good Friday.
In addition to the calendar, the committee also reported the submission of a letter of notification regarding the establishment of a new Master of Science of Orthotics and Prosthetics program at ETSU. According to committee agenda materials, the letter is the first formal step to creating the degree with approval from the Tennessee Higher Education Commission and if there are no delays, the program can be expected to begin in Summer 2022. Latimer explained that this program would be “one of only a handful in the entire nation”, and the meeting agenda describes it as potentially the first of its kind in the state of Tennessee.
Trustee Melissa Steagall-Jones reported as chair of the Audit Committee, and expressed her pleasure in the fact that the meeting was mundane and lacking in major developments. Afterwards, the Finance and Administrative Committee meeting results were shared by Trustee Steven Decarlo, chair of the committee. Decarlo explained that ETSU’s finances are unstable and lacking in large changes despite the impact of COVID-19. The board then voted unanimously to adopt the full consent agenda, approving the decisions recommended by the previously mentioned committees.
The board also voted unanimously to adopt a permanent version of the Title IX rules within the university which replaced the previous emergency rule put in place in August. University Counsel Mark Fulks explained that the emergency rule was put in place to meet newly changed federal guidelines and was scheduled to expire, and that the new rule was identical in every way except the process in which it was filed.
Michael Hoff, associate vice president of Planning and Decision Support, spoke to ETSU’s progress made on the Committee for 125, the university’s long-term strategy group. Hoff explained that while the university was facing challenges across enrollment, the issue was not limited to ETSU. COVID-19 has impacted enrollment throughout the nation, with statistics later shared in ETSU President Brian Noland’s report.
Dr. Bill Block, dean of the Quillen College of Medicine, then presented a report on the status of ETSU’s COVID-19 response and the condition of the region in relation to the pandemic. Block shared the observation that 10% of cases observed throughout the nation since the beginning of the pandemic had been recorded over the previous week, and that the rate of infection seemed to be climbing. Addressing misinformation that has been plaguing the public, Block shared the difference in infections and deaths between the COVID-19 pandemic and flu seasons thus far.
“Last flu season, which lasted about the same period of time, we had 38 million cases in the US, so almost four times the number of cases that we’ve seen of COVID-19,” Block said. “But we had 22,000 deaths in the U.S., all of which are tragic, but a small fraction of the number we’ve seen of the COVID-19 virus which to date has had 10 million cases in the U.S. and 240,000 deaths.”
Block urged all members of the community to observe state, federal and campus guidelines and suggested that those who plan to travel should create personal holiday safety plans in order to see family members without causing risk of infection. In an interview after the meeting, Noland spoke to his own decisions regarding holiday safety.
“All of us are approaching this season with, you know, kind of a great sense of concern for the safety of our families and loved ones,” said Noland. “I have a mom that I love deeply, and the last thing that I would want to do is to put my mom in a position in which her health was compromised. So we’re trying to envision how we structure the holidays for our family. This may be the first holiday season in my life when I’m not with my mom for Thanksgiving or Christmas, and that’s going to be a difficult decision.”
Noland then delivered his report to the board with a focus on enrollment challenges faced both by the university and other institutions. A topic of particular concern was male enrollment, with large drops in the number of young men attending community colleges and universities. Noland referred to the educational pipeline of high school graduates, where in Tennessee only 27% of high school graduates go on to graduate from a university within six years.
While enrollment is down, several measures of school performance have improved over the last year. The president’s report projected a graduation rate of 58%, topping the record-setting performance of the last two years by roughly 8%.
For more information regarding upcoming and previous board meetings, visit https://www.etsu.edu/trustees
