Tuition and mandatory fee rates for next year and faculty professional development requests for FY15 are on the agenda when the state Board of Regents meets in Ames on Wednesday, Dec. 4. While officially a telephonic meeting, it will originate from the executive board room at the ISU Alumni Center. Live audio of all public portions of the meeting will be streamed on the board's website.
Professional development assignments
Iowa State will ask the board to approve professional development assignments (PDA) for 37 faculty members during the 2014-15 academic year (47 faculty members applied for a PDA). This represents 2.1 percent of eligible faculty members and is down slightly from the current year, in which 45 faculty members will complete a PDA.
The gender breakdown this year is 24 men and 13 women. Seven proposed assignments are for the full academic year, the others are for a semester. Thirteen of the faculty members previously completed a PDA.
The net cost of the 37 PDAs is about $131,000 ($403,000 in teaching replacement costs minus $272,000 in salary savings for the seven full-year assignments). Some assignments do not bring additional costs when the department can manage a faculty absence by reassigning courses among other faculty.
At Iowa State, any faculty member employed at least half time is eligible to apply for a professional development assignment. There is no requirement for length of service. Priority may be given to tenured faculty over adjunct and non-tenured faculty and to individuals who have not received a PDA in the past five years.
The board also will receive a summary report of 2012-13 professional development assignments.
Tuition and fees
As proposed, tuition for in-state undergraduates next year again would remain at 2012-13 levels, or $6,648. Nonresident undergraduates would pay $334 (1.74 percent) more in tuition next year, or $19,534. Resident graduate students would pay $142 (1.81 percent) more, or $7,999, and nonresident graduate students would pay an additional $646 (3.2 percent), or $20,804. College of Veterinary Medicine students, resident or nonresident, would pay 4.5 percent more next year – $20,014 and $44,768, respectively.
Mandatory student fees would go up $5.80, to $1,083.40 for Iowa State undergraduates and to $1,037.40 for graduate students, in 2014-15, as proposed. That includes a $3 increase for student services and a $2.80 increase for student activities. Student fees haven't changed for Iowa State students in three years.
New center, program-specific fees, bond sales
In other business, Iowa State will seek permission to:
- Establish a new center, the Center for Arthropod Management Technologies, in the entomology department. It would be a National Science Foundation Industry/University Cooperative Research Center, following that program's consortium model. In this case, industry, government and universities would collaborate to develop technologies that better manage arthropod pests. Iowa State would be the lead university and the University of Kentucky would be a sister institution. Initially, the consortium would have seven industry members: BASF, Bayer CropScience AG, Bayer CropScience LP, Dow AgroSciences, DuPont Pioneer, FuturaGene and Monsanto Co.
- Approve the list of program-specific fees for 2014-15. Iowa State is proposing a $120 orientation fee for international students for services and activities that enhance their transition to the university.
- Undertake two bond sales: An estimated $8.8 million in dormitory revenue bonds to complete six new student apartment buildings in Frederiksen Court, and an estimated $6.3 million in academic building revenue refunding bonds to save about $420,000 in interest on two previous academic building bond sales (2003, 2004)
Any Iowan who wants to provide comments to board members on an agenda item may do so at one of six public hearings (PDF) this week. The public hearing at Iowa State is Thursday, Nov. 21 (6-7 p.m., Memorial Union Campanile Room).
