The OU Board of Regents will hold its March meeting on Wednesday, with agenda items including approval for the Radar Innovations Assembly Building 2 project, changes to academic service fees and amendments to OU’s housing policy for incoming students
The regents will hear appointments for various leadership positions at OU during the meeting. The board maintains an empty spot as the meeting follows the resignation of former regent Phil Albert amid a two-year-old litigation involving embezzlement allegations from a company he co-founded.
According to the meeting agenda, the regents will consider approval for the Radar Innovations Assembly Building 2 project and the addition of the project to the Campus Master Plan of Capital Improvement Projects. The project is a new addition to the Norman campus and includes an approximately 10,000 square-foot radar assembly building to be located on the University Research Campus in proximity to the Radar Innovations Laboratory. The estimated total construction cost is $4 million with funding from university funds, according to the agenda.
The agenda ranks four architectural firms in order of interest: Miles Architecture, GSB, Inc., Rand Elliott Architects and Studio Architecture. The board will seek authorization for the administration to negotiate the terms of an agreement and a fee.
According to the agenda, OU developed a Tuition & Fee Simplification initiative for 2022-23 to “reduce the number of fees charged to students, improve transparency regarding the use of fee monies collected, and simplify student bursar bills.” Regents will hear a proposal to delete nearly 700 academic service fees and realign certain existing fees, “significantly reducing the complexity of the current billing structure.”
Agenda items also include revisions to OU’s housing policy for incoming students with detailed guidelines on how to be eligible for an exemption from on-campus housing during a student's first year. Exemptions include being married or having children, having lived in a university residence hall for two years, having lived in Cleveland or McClain counties during their senior year of high school and planning to continue living in the counties or having a “verifiable financial, medical, or exceptional need” that cannot be “adequately addressed” by the University Housing Review Committee.
Other agenda items contain multiple appointments to leadership positions at OU such as the appointment of Sarah Ellis, associate director of the OU School of Music, as vice provost for faculty. Ellis came to OU in 2003 beginning her tenure track the following year. She’s served as the assistant director for undergraduate curriculum and advising in the school, according to the agenda, and is currently the Kenneth and Bernadine Russell professor in music theory.
Ellis’s leadership extended beyond the School of Music as she served as the chair of the Faculty Senate when OU was conducting its first presidential search in over 20 years in 2017-18. Additionally, she was a member of the Faculty Senate executive committee for three years before becoming chair and served as co-chair on the President’s Academic Program Budget Advisory Committee in 2018-19.
Agenda items also include the appointment of Matthew Brockwell, OU Chief Financial Officer, and Gary Raskob, the HSC Interim Senior Vice President and Provost, as Class U Directors of OU Health.
The agenda states the OU Michael F. Price College of Business received a $42 million “irrevocable estate commitment” from an anonymous donor. The university also received $7,675,000 from the Shelby Cullom Davis Charitable fund that provides scholarship funding to the Davis United World College Scholars Program students at OU. The OU Mewbourne College of Earth and Energy School of Geoscience received a $5 million estate commitment from alumnus and 020 Distinguished Service Award recipient Chris Cheatwood and his wife Cathy Cheatwood.
Additionally, the regents will hear a recommendation to approve resolutions in recognition of OU Staff Week on each campus, including that staff are “essential to the fulfillment of the institution’s mission,” their “dedication, skills and talents strengthen and enhance the worth and productivity of the entire university” and the “diverse contributions and achievements of the staff elevate the quality of life for those within the University.”
The regents will meet at 8 a.m. March 9 in the Provost’s Conference Room of the OU Health Sciences Center’s Robert M. Bird library for its executive session. The public meeting will begin at 3 p.m. in the library’s auditorium. Follow The Daily’s live coverage on Twitter @OUDaily.
