Faculty promotions go to regents next week

Iowa State will seek final approval of 76 faculty promotions when the state Board of Regents meets next week at the Iowa School for the Deaf in Council Bluffs. Iowa State's request includes 44 cases of promotion with tenure, 30 cases of promotion (individuals already are tenured) and two tenure awards without promotion. If approved the promotions take effect in August. A year ago, Iowa State brought 56 requests to the board.

The full agenda for the April 23-24 meeting is online and a live audio stream of public portions of the meeting will be available from the board's website.

The board also will receive the three universities' annual report on tenured faculty. The chart below breaks out faculty growth at Iowa State over the last three academic years:

Iowa State reported that 103 tenured faculty members – 10 percent of the university's tenured faculty -- were reviewed last year (2012-13) as a result of the post-tenure review policy.

Salary discussions

As a run-up to a salary policy discussion at the board's June 5 meeting, leaders of employee groups not represented by a union have been invited to address the board. From Iowa State, this will include Faculty Senate president Veronica Dark and P&S Council president Steve Mayberry.

Student debt

The board also will receive an annual report on student financial aid. The trends include a federal Pell Grant program that hasn't kept pace with tuition increases, a small ($289,267) need-based Iowa Grant Program that continues to shrink, institutional grant totals that continue to rise and students' growing reliance on off-campus employment to help pay for school.

ISU undergraduate students: 2012-13

*For those graduating with debt

Building requests

Iowa State will ask for the green light to build research laboratories in 10,500 square feet of unfinished basement in Hach Hall. When Hach opened in 2010, this space was reserved for future development to attract top-rated faculty to the chemistry department.

The $4 million cost already has been raised in private gifts.

The athletics department will seek permission to contract with Daktronics to design, fabricate and install a video scoreboard in the south end of Jack Trice Stadium. The existing message boards and scoreboards in the stadium and Hilton Coliseum were purchased from Daktronics, and the new system will be integrated with the existing system. At its February meeting, the board authorized Iowa State to begin planning improvements to the south end of the stadium and the space between the stadium and Reiman Gardens.

Superintendent candidate interviews

On Wednesday morning, the board will interview three finalists for the superintendent's position for the Iowa School for the Deaf (Council Bluffs) and the Iowa Braille and Sight Saving School (Vinton), and is expected to introduce the new superintendent by mid-afternoon. In December, superintendent Patrick Clancy announced he would retire by the end of June. The three emerged from a first round of candidate interviews completed April 8-9 by a board-appointed search committee.

Board elections

The board also is scheduled to elect a board president and president pro tem. Bruce Rastetter and Katie Mulholland have held those posts, respectively, since last June.

In other business, Iowa State will seek board approval for:

• Parking permit fees for the year that begins July 1
• Residence and dining systems rates for the 2014-15 academic year
• Proposed allocation of mandatory student fees for the 2014-15 academic year
• Plans to terminate the Master of Public Administration program in the political science department due to lack of funding needed to retain the full-time faculty required for program accreditation. Program phase-out to accommodate enrolled students is expected to take two more years.
• Plans to establish a Master of Engineering program in energy systems engineering, an interdepartmental, online, non-thesis program designed for practicing professionals