The Board of Regents met to discuss fiscal requests for 2024 and student engagement among a host of other topics Wednesday.

The regents met at the University of Northern Iowa’s campus and are set to meet again Thursday morning.

Budget Items

Iowa State presented two transactions before the regents for approval, those being:

• The Therkildsen Industrial Engineering Building project
• Union Drive Community Center-Union Drive Marketplace renovation project

The Therkildsen Industrial Engineering Building project was originally approved in June with a budget of $54 million. Iowa State requested the budget be revised from $54 million to $73.2 million to reflect cost proposals received in 2022.

“This will allow us to accommodate the original cost escalation and allow the awarding of the construction contract with no change in project scope,” said Heather Paris, interim senior vice president for Operations and Finance at Iowa State.

In respect to the engineering building project, all requested increases in allocations stem from an increase in construction costs, not from any changes in the scope of the project, Paris said.

Iowa State requested an increase from $3.64 million to $5.56 million for the Union Drive project. Paris said the increases requested stem both from an increase in the scope of the project as well as increased construction costs.

Iowa State also requested approval on a lease agreement, two lease amendments and an easement agreement.

One requested lease would enter Iowa State into a new 20-year lease with the Ames Racquet and Fitness Center to support tennis at the university.

“The poor condition of the outdoor courts and a requirement to have a minimum of three indoor courts to host competitions requires us to host competitions in either West Des Moines or Ames Highschool,” Paris said. “This new facility would provide six new outdoor courts and expand the number of existing indoor courts from four to six.”

The two lease amendments are in respect to agreements held between the university and Sprint/T-Mobile. The first amendment would extend an already existing 20-year lease for five more years at $27,600 per year, with a 3% annual increase. The leased equipment resides on top of Wilson Residence hall.

The second requested amendment would extend a lease started in 1996 with Sprint/T-Mobile for five years for equipment space for $24,000 per year, with a 3% annual increase. The leased equipment resides on top of Ross Hall.

Iowa State also requested the board approve a permanent underground utility easement to Alliant energy for a new underground natural gas line along the Union Pacific railroad.

Orientation Programs & Student Engagement

Sarah Merrill, director of new student programs at Iowa State, presented before the regents in regard to Iowa State’s orientation programs.

Merrill highlighted Orientation Your Way, a blend between the university’s efforts to bring orientation back on campus following the pandemic with enhanced online options for students to tailor their own experience.

“Resoundingly, students chose on-campus orientation [and] in-person advising,” Merrill said. “We actually brought over 12,000 students and families to campus this summer over 17 two-day programs for first-year students and seven one-day programs for transfer students, serving about 1,500 transfer students and families.”

Merrill also spoke on Destination Iowa State, a three-day extended orientation which provides new students with peer-led activities. Merrill shared the anecdote of a student who participated in the program, who said they were able to make their first college friends through the peer-led activities offered at Destination Iowa State.

In regard to student engagement, Senior Vice President of Student Affairs Toyia Younger told the regents that student engagement is about more than engaging new students.

“As my colleagues mentioned, it’s not even just focusing on getting our students to engage, but particularly looking at our upperclassmen and getting them to re-engage,” Younger said. “Many of them came in during the middle of the pandemic, and so they too are navigating almost as freshmen if you will.”

Younger said students have almost lost the ability to communicate face-to-face, citing overuse of social media as well as Zoom classes as causes for the phenomenon, which she said leads many students to be glued to their phones in social settings.

“How do we get our students to learn how to re-engage and communicate–not only in social settings, but also in the classroom?” Younger said. “So that’s where we’re putting a lot of our emphasis, and our staff has really been working with students in terms of helping them build up their confidence in certain ways, presentation skills, all those things.”

The board is set to hear reports Thursday from the various heads of regent institutions.