BGSU board approves budgets, sets tuition

BOWLING GREEN, O.—At its last meeting of the fiscal year, and the last to be attended by President Carol Cartwright, the Bowling Green State University Board of Trustees approved educational and general budgets of $285.7 million for the Bowling Green campus and $14.8 million for BGSU Firelands. The board also set rates for tuition and fees for the 2011-12 academic year and approved a net funding pool for faculty and staff salary increases.

The trustees approved a 3.5 percent increase in undergraduate tuition and fees. Full-time, in-state undergraduate students on the Bowling Green campus will pay $168 more per semester in fall 2011.

There will be no increase to the out-of-state portion of either undergraduate or graduate instructional fees, and no change to the in-state graduate instructional fees.
For those taking online classes, the per-credit-hour tuition rate will now be the same as the on-campus rate.

In addition, for students on the Bowling Green campus, a $60-per-semester fee that was approved by students in 2009 to help pay for the Stroh Center will go into effect in August when the building opens.

Modest pools were provided for staff compensation increases and the associated benefit expenses. Any salary pools for faculty must be collectively bargained with the BGSU-FA, BGSU’s new faculty union.

In making its budget decisions, the board took into account the 14 percent ($11 million) decrease in state support the Bowling Green campus will receive this fiscal year, and the 11.2 percent decrease (about half a million dollars) for BGSU Firelands.

Offsetting some of the reduction in state funding was an anticipated increased in overall undergraduate enrollment for fall, including about 400 more undergraduates than last year. The budget includes $481,000 for teaching the additional course sections that may be needed.

In other action, the trustees approved:

• Emeritus status for Dr. Robert Boughton of the Department of Physics and Astronomy.
• The transfer of the name of the Eva Marie Saint Theatre from Hanna Hall to the black box theater in the new Wolfe Center for the Arts.
• The naming of a graduate student work area and lounge in the Wolfe Center as the Drs. Carol and Phillip Cartwright Room.
• Renaming the newly purchased apartment buildings on East Wooster Street at Mercer Avenue as Falcon Landing (previously named Haven House and Haven House Manor).
• Proceeding to Phase Two of the Greek Replacement Housing Plan, an examination of such aspects as finances, locations, and stakeholder input.

Trustee William Primrose III was elected the next president of the board, succeeding Col. John E. Moore.

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(Posted June 24, 2011 )