The Bowling Green State University Faculty Association can breathe a sigh of relief after a new collective bargaining agreement has been approved by the board.
The new three-year contract will take affect on July 1, 2016 after the expiration of the old agreement. The approval comes after the faculty ratified the tentative agreement last month.
"We are extremely pleased, both with the collegiality of the process and the outcome," President Mary Ellen Mazey said. "The agreement lays the foundation for closer collaboration with our faculty, which will strengthen our university and help us continue to meet the needs of our students."
The agreement will give faculty a three-percent salary increase annually and also addresses the shared governance, academic freedom, faculty review, and professional development issues.
The trustees also approved fees to begin next semester for classes that are deemed the "most costly to deliver".
An additional $12.50 per-credit-hour fees for upper-level undergraduate classes in the College of Business Administration will be assessed. BGSU says the funds will help attract and retain faculty and to support student experiences like the Business Accelerator lab course, the Bloomberg lab and the Career Accelerator. Funds generated are expected to be around $369,000.
The College of Technology, Architecture and Applied Engineering will similarly enforce a fee for upper-level undergraduate courses to help small class sizes and the specialized equipment necessary. $67,000 is expected to be generated from the fees.
An optional fee of $9 per students was approved to support student media at the BG News, WBGU-FM, and TV2. If 75-percent of students participate, the school expects it to generate roughly $225,000 annually.
Students at BGSU Firelands will seeing a technology fee on their bill next year. Freshmen and sophomores will be charged $4.50 per credit hour and juniors and seniors will be charged $5 per, both capped at 15 credit hours.
To help improve energy efficiency and reduce costs, the board approved a third centralized chiller plant for Olscamp Hall and the Business Administration Building, both of which have aging cooling systems. The chiller plant will be operated from the basement of Olscamp Hall in order to support buildings nearby. The project will be paid for by state capital funds from the 2017-18 budget and is expected to cost $2.5 million.
Also being finalized in the end-of-semester meetings was the renaming of two areas on campus. When students return for the fall semester, the building formerly known as South Hall will be the Michael and Sara Kuhlin Center. The building is host to the School of Media and Communication. Inside the Kuhlin Center will be the Stoddard-O'Neill Lobby.