The IU Board of Trustees were informed and made decisions about a range of topics in a meeting Friday and Saturday, including climate change, Title IX and sexual misconduct reports and renovations of Wright Quadrangle.
IU President Pamela Whitten informed the trustees of a new Climate Action Planning Committee, made up of faculty, students and staff. IU students have been calling for IU to have a climate action plan, and the Climate Action Planning Committee will recommend opportunities for IU to decrease greenhouse gas emissions across all its campuses.
The trustees also viewed a presentation on 2020-21 sexual misconduct reports and faculty and staff discrimination and harassment reports. There were 36 faculty and staff discrimination and harassment reports at IU-Bloomington, one of which was not in IU’s jurisdiction. There were 190 student sexual misconduct reports, 28 of which were not in IU’s jurisdiction.
As part of a plan to renovate all major residence facilities at IU-Bloomington, the Finance, Audit and Strategic Planning Committee, one of the trustee committees, viewed a reimbursement resolution outlining costs for renovating Wright Quad, IU spokesperson Chuck Carney said in an email. No plan has been brought before the trustees for approval yet.
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Tuition cost was another topic at the meeting. Whitten recently established the Tuition and Fees Task Force to research and recommend how to set undergraduate tuition and fees, as well as lowering overall student costs.
According to a News at IU article, the trustees will likely reconsider tuition and fees for the next academic years in 2023. The tuition and fees were most recently set in June 2021.
The trustees also approved a Ph.D. in music therapy at IU-Purdue University Indianapolis, the first degree of its kind in Indiana. The Indiana Commission for Higher Education must still approve the degree before implementation.
