The University of Toledo Board of Trustees approved a number of resolutions in its last meeting of the 2023 calendar year.
UToledo continued its practice of making room and board decisions ahead of the annual budgeting process to provide students and families more time to plan for the upcoming school year.
Balancing the desire to keep the cost to attend UToledo as affordable as possible and the need to offset increased costs of operations, new housing and meal plan rates were approved by the Trustees and are effective for the fall 2024 semester.
Housing rates will increase an average of 3%, depending on the student’s choice of residence hall, and meal plans will increase 4% for students in the incoming seventh cohort of the Toledo Tuition Guarantee and will remain the same rate for their four years at UToledo. Under the new rates a standard double room will increase $140 per semester and the unlimited Gold 7 All Access meal plan will be $95 more per semester.
As the fall commencement ceremony approaches, the Board approved an honorary degree for Patrick Bowe, the president and CEO of The Andersons, who will be the commencement speaker on Saturday, Dec. 16 in Savage Arena.
Bowe has been in the agricultural business for more than 40 years. He began his career at Cargill, Inc. as a cash grain merchant at the Chicago Board of Trade and worked his way up to corporate vice president of the Food Ingredients and Platform division. In 2015 he joined The Andersons, which is celebrating 75 years of service. Bowe will receive the Degree of Doctor of Commercial Science, honoris causa.
Trustees also recognized student-athletes and coaches on the women’s cross country team for winning its third consecutive Mid-American Conference Championship in October. Head Coach Andrea Grove-McDonough also was named MAC Women’s Cross Country Coach of the Year for the third consecutive season.
A number of large purchases were approved for infrastructure upgrades on campus, including contracts for repairing air handling units in the Health Education Building on Health Science Campus, replacing steam and condensate lines underground near Memorial Field House on Main Campus and demolishing Palmer Hall following the opening of the renovated North Engineering Building. UToledo also is planning for the construction of an outdoor quad where Palmer Hall currently stands and for a pedestrian bridge over Douglas Road near the east side of Savage Arena. The projects are funded with state biennium appropriations.
The Board also approved the remediation and affordability and efficiency reports that are provided annually to the Ohio Department of Higher Education and affirmed continuing the current practices on transcript withholding, except from potential employers, when students owe money to the institution.
Trustees also heard reports on the recently created Institute of American Constitutional Thought and Leadership from Lee Strang, the John W. Stoepler Professor of Law and Values and director of the institute, and received an enrollment update from David Meredith, vice president for enrollment management.
Continuing its new format of holding committee meetings separately ahead of the full Board of Trustees meeting, UToledo’s annual external audit report was shared with the Finance and Audit Committee on Friday, Dec. 1 by the firm CliftonLarson Allen, known by the acronym CLA.
The audited financial statements for fiscal year 2023 included UToledo, the University of Toledo Medical Center, the UToledo Foundation and UToledo Physicians. All came back clean with no areas of concern. The auditors also commended the UToledo staff for their accurate and timely financial records.
The external auditors also noted current events faced by all colleges and universities in the higher education space, including enrollment pressures, increasing costs of the student experience, cyber security and technology costs, mergers and acquisitions activity, program profitability and pressure to reduce expenditures.
