President's Report: 8/26/22

August 23, 2022 / Anna Carlin

There is a lot to catch up on and much to look forward to for this academic year. Here is my "welcome back" report and updates.

1. Board of Trustees updates

The BOT met last on June 14.
Financing Corporation has 36 million in reserves. BOT would like to investigate best uses of this money. One idea shared was to let colleges/offices/division with strategic plans decide on best uses to support strategic directions of the university.
The Foundation reported their second best fundraising year in FGCU's history. We were also told that 15 million of university's investments have been allocated to environmental and socially responsible investing areas, though I don't have more details.
The BOT approved this Student Success Plan (starts on page 95) to be submitted to the BOG. We are required to commit to this plan because our over all performance-based funding score has gone down two years in a row. I'd like to point out that we showed negative improvement on only 4 out of 11 metrics. Of those four metrics, there is one metric that was a negative across the board for all SUS schoools. If you look at the over all picture, we mostly held at the same numbers in most areas. We are not failing, we are just improving more slowly than we had in the past.

2. Board of Governors updates

The BOG met June 29-30. The job of finding a new accreditor for the SUS schools was a hot topic, as were the needs of nursing education in the state. At this meeting, Chancellor Criser announced he will not renew his contract. The search for the next chancellor is underway and two finalists have been identified by search committee, including our own State Senator Ray Rodrigues.
The BOG will meet by conference call on August 26 to discuss, amongst other things, the Intellectual Viewpoint Survey Report and Accreditation Report. They are also approving a number of regulations that implement legislation that was enacted earlier this year. One regulation requires that universities must include an endorsement for the Board's Statement of Free Expression & a clear expectation for open-minded and tolerant civil discourse in their accountability plans.

3. FGCU President Search updates

A compensation range was approved by the BOT in June based on an initial compensation study done by an external firm.
There is a large initial pool of 125 applicants. The search committee will meet (not public) on September 1 to narrow field. Semi-finalists will be interviewed (not public) September 20-22. The committee members can not tell you who has applied but we can make sure that our representative knows what qualities are important.