WSU Regents to Discuss Tuition, Other Issues Friday

PULLMAN, Wash. – The Washington State University Board of Regents will consider tuition rates for the 2007 and 2008 academic years at its regularly scheduled meeting to be held at 8:30 a.m. Friday in Room 405 of the Lighty Student Services Building on the Pullman campus.

The meeting agenda is available at https://regents.wsu.edu/meeting-dates/070504Agenda.pdf

In the just-completed legislative session, the Washington State Legislature passed the 2007-2009 appropriations act with a provision limiting tuition increases for Washington state resident undergraduate students at both WSU and the University of Washington to 7 percent a year. Legislative budget writers assumed tuition increases of 7 percent when they set the state budget.

The Web site — https://www.regents.wsu.edu/tuition/ — includes information about the tuition proposals in various categories. The site also provides an opportunity for public comment to the regents on tuition.

Under the proposal, tuition would increase by 7 percent for resident and non-resident undergraduates and graduate students in both academic years. The resident undergraduate rate would be $2,906 per semester in 2007-2008 and $3,109 per semester in 2008-2009.

For students in the PharmD program, the recommended increase is 10 percent per year.

The regents will also be asked to set annual services and activity fee rates at $478 for the academic year, an increase of 5 percent, and Student Recreation Center annual fees for students on the Pullman campus at $256, an increase of 6.67 percent. That would be the first increase in the recreation center fee in four years.

The meeting will be V. Lane Rawlins’ last as university president. He is retiring; in December, the regents selected Elson S. Floyd, formerly president of the University of Missouri system, as his successor.

Other items on the agenda include:
– Designating David Miller and Robert Hull, partners in Miller|Hull Architects as the next recipients of the Regents’ Distinguished Alumnus Award. The award would be presented in the fall, when they are scheduled to be on campus teaching a design studio course.

– Renaming two Pullman campus buildings – Wilson-Short Hall (currently Wilson Hall) in honor of James Short, Professor Emeritus in sociology; and the Orville A. Vogel Plant Biosciences Building  (currently Plant Bioscience Facility I), in honor of one of the university’s and the world’s pioneers in wheat research.

– Establishing a doctoral program in nursing and an accelerated master of business administration option.

– Adopting changes to the Faculty Manual, including new policies on discrimination and sexual harassment and on faculty-student and supervisor-subordinate relationships.

– Approving the construction of a consolidated storage building ($1.2 million), replacing the deteriorating façade on Wilson Hall ($2 million) and replacing windows and adding air conditioning to Johnson Tower ($3.2 million). All of the projects are on the Pullman campus.

The regents will hold committee meetings Thursday afternoon in Lighty Student Services Building.