Auburn's Board of Trustees gave the go-ahead on a numbers of major on-campus construction projects at its Friday, April 11, meeting, despite the necessity to increase tuition again for the 2014-2015 year.
The largest project discussed at the meeting was about renovations being made to Foy Dining Hall, including an expansion of the indoor dining facilities and an update to the outdoor patio around it.
Associate Vice President of Facilities Management Dan King said the $2.2 million construction project will take place mostly at night to allow students to continue eating in Foy during the day.
"If anything, [working at night] will cause the project to be take longer to finish,"King said. "Thatch is a heavily trafficked area and we didn't want to have dump trucks driving around there at 10 a.m.when students are walking everywhere. From a safety standpoint it didn't make sense."
Now that a $600,000 increase to the original $1.6 million budget has been approved by the board, facilities management has the authority to start looking for a contractor to begin in early May, King said.
State appropriated funds have continued to go down from $337 million since the 2008 recession to $243 million, an average total decrease of $94 million every year.
"If we would have just continued to get what we had been getting, we would have $558 million more," said Don Large, executive vice President. "The bad news is, we have to ask for a tuition increase. The good news is we can keep it lower than we have in recent years, but it's still going to be something."
Tuition will be increased by .7 percent, down from the one percent increase from last year that Large estimates will bring in the school about $2 million overall.
A new waste reduction and recycling building costing $823,000 was approved at the meeting and will feature two new trash compactors on site to help improve Auburn's garbage collection services.
Williams Blackstock associates of Birmingham was selected from 18 candidates as contractor for a new graduate Business Education building.
Omicron Delta Kappa's honorary society, the Squires, received the board's approval to place and maintain a plaque on the AUSC green space commemorating an oak sapling that is a descendent of the Toomer's Oaks.
A posthumous B.A. of Science degree in Software Engineering was awarded to late Auburn senior Barrett "Bear" Townsend by the Samuel Ginn College of Engineering.
\0x200BAt Auburn's Montgomery campus, property to be leased to a cell tower construction was granted in order to bring in additional funds as well as improve cellphone service on campus.
Plans have been finalized to introduce an education specialty degree in Instructional Technology.
AUM already features a masters program in instructional technology, but now anyone can be certified in classroom technology said Dr. Kellie Shumack, department head of Foundations, Technology and Secondary Education.
"The program hasn't started yet, but we've gotten an overwhelming response from our surveys," Shumack said. "We're already using a tremendous amount of technology on our campus, so this program is a way to get K-12 teachers to use more tech in their classes too."
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