Board of Visitors approves tuition freeze, preliminary 2020-21 university budget
The Virginia Tech Board of Visitors voted unanimously today to approve a tuition freeze for resident and nonresident undergraduate, graduate, and professional students for the 2020-21 academic year and a preliminary budget for the 2020-21 fiscal year.
Both resolutions where advanced by the board’s Finance and Resource Management Committee, which met Friday.
On June 1, Executive Vice President and Provost Cyril Clarke provided an update to the Academic, Research, and Student Affairs Committee on progress toward plans that will define the fall semester. Clarke noted the many issues the university has been working on prior to Virginia Tech President Tim Sands’ formal announcement on university fall plans on June 8.
In other news, the board approved a resolution to establish a new Bachelor of Science degree program in behavioral decision science. The new program, which will provide students an understanding of economic and psychological models for how people optimally make decisions as well as an understanding of basic neural mechanisms and substrates that aid understanding of the decision-making process, will be available by the 2021 spring term, pending approval by the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia.
On May 27, the Governance and Administration Committee received several reports on Senior Vice President and Chief Business Officer Dwayne Pinkney’s Administration and Operations Transformation Project. Vice President for Strategic Affairs Menah Pratt-Clarke provided board members with an update on InclusiveVT initiatives and Athletic Director Whit Babcock and Senior Associate Athletics Director Brad Wurthman discussed plans to improve Wifi access in Lane Stadium.
On May 14, the Buildings and Grounds Committee was presented with design previews of the Data and Decision Sciences Building and the New Upper Quad Residence Hall, both to be located in Blacksburg, and the Innovation Campus Academic 1 Building, a 300,000 gross-square-foot facility in Alexandria, Virginia. The committee also received an update from Alan Grant, dean of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, on agricultural facilities planning and construction across the commonwealth.
Faculty promotion, tenure, and continued appointments for 2020 were also approved by the board. These appointments are published on the Virginia Tech News website.
In addition, the board approved the appointment of four faculty members to endowed chairs or professorships and one faculty member was honored with emeritus status. Stories on each of these individuals and about those recently reappointed to endowed professorships will be published on the Virginia Tech News website later this month.
Rector Horacio Valeiras, Virginia Tech President Tim Sands, and other board members acknowledged the many contributions of current board members Greta J. Harris, Chris Petersen, Dennis H. Treacy, and Jeff E. Veatch, all of whom will conclude four-year terms on June 30.
Undergraduate student representative Madelynn Todd and graduate student representative Ryan King will conclude their one-year terms to the board, and faculty representative John Ferris will complete two successive one-year terms of service to the board on June 30. Eric Kaufman, professor in the Department of Agricultural, Leadership, and Community Education in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, will serve as the new faculty representative effective July 1. Tamarah Smith, business operations specialist with the Office of Summer and Winter Sessions, will continue as the staff representative to the board.
Camellia Pastore, a rising senior majoring in computer science in the College of Engineering, will succeed Todd as the undergraduate student representative. Sabrina Sturgeon, a master’s degree student in the higher education program in the College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences, will succeed King as the graduate student representative.
The board announced its rector and vice rector for the 2020-21 year. Valeiras, chief executive officer and partner of Frontier Global Partners, will continue serve as rector, and Letitia A. Long, chair of the board of the Intelligence and National Security Alliance, will continue as vice rector.
The next scheduled meeting of the Virginia Tech Board of Visitors will be held Aug. 23-25. More information on the Virginia Tech Board of Visitors may be found online.
