The Board of Visitors (BOV) meeting on Feb. 3 was marked by President William G. Kelly’s appearance, just one day after the presidential announcement event. After an opening speech by current Interim President Adelia Thompson and then some remarks by Kelly, the meeting began.

To begin the meeting, the board acknowledged the two Outstanding Faculty Award winners, Dr. Margarita Marinova and Dr. Kelly Cartwright. 

Thompson announced that CNU received an “A” grade from the nonprofit organization, American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA). According to whatwilltheylearn.com, “What Will They Learn? rates each institution on how many of seven core subjects are required in the core curriculum or general education program.” Only 22 institutions out of 1,135 received an “A,” with CNU being the only public institution.

 Thompson talked about a grant that had been announced at the last BOV meeting. The university had received this grant from the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia to expand the counseling services offered at CNU. The BOV can expect a report on mental health from the Vice President of Student Affairs, Dr. Kevin Hughes, at the upcoming April meeting.

After that the BOV began discussing the topics for the meeting. They started off with Finance and Facilities by talking about the construction of the Integrated Science Center. This will be an expansion onto the Luter building, with an estimated cost of $90.7 million, increased from the original estimate of $58.5 million. This construction project had been discussed in previous BOV meetings, but new images from CNU’s BoardDocs site show more detailed renderings of the building’s interior and exterior. The building is supposed to be completed and ready to use in fall of 2025.

The board also discussed how the house and senate budget will be different. The house will most likely adopt some form of Governor Youngkin’s proposed tax cuts of  $1 billion, while the senate will probably not. The board would prefer the senate’s budget. They have asked for $3.2 million for the unrestricted budget to be used for staff raises, utilities etc.. The dining expense for food has increased by 30%.

Next on the agenda was Operations, Audit and Risk Report. One of the things they talked about was how HR partnered with an outside consultant to do a compensation study on the classified and wage staff, which is about 530 employees. This study resulted in over 45% getting pay increases. Then the BOV continued discussing different audit reports.

For the section of Academic affairs the first thing that was announced was that CNU Professors have gotten $450,000 in grants. The BOV also talked about how they are getting ready to offer a new B.A. in arts and music. This will begin being offered in the Fall semester of 2023. They also approved a new compensation plan for the professors to be implemented in the 2023-2024 year.