MSU's Board of Trustees met Friday to discuss various items from residence hall rates to endowments.
Here are seven takeaways from the meeting, which show what's to come with the MSU administration:
Seven takeaways from April 15 Board of Trustees meeting
The MSU Board of Trustees discuss issues during their June 17, 2015, meeting at the Hannah Administration Building. Joshua Abraham/The State News
1. MSU's Office for Inclusion and Intercultural Initiatives released its annual Diversity Report for the 2014-15 academic year.
Paulette Granberry-Russell, Office for Inclusion and Intercultural Initiatives director, revealed the 2014-15 results of MSU's Diversity Report.
MSU's fall 2015 freshmen class increased 5.7 percent from 2014 for students of color.
Russell said women are still the majority in undergraduate education. African American and Native American faculty still have low numbers.
2. The board voted to establish an endowment to provide Fine Arts programming on WKAR Radio in addition to Educational Programming and Services on WKAR-TV.
The Joan C. Smith Fund for Fine Arts Programming will create a program for classical music on WKAR Radio. The board granted $77,500 to aid the establishment of the program.
Additionally, the board voted to create Educational Programming on WKAR-TV. This decision comes three months after President Lou Anna K. Simon announced MSU's partnership with WKAR.
3. Residence hall rates will increase for the 2016-17 academic year, as forecasted by the trustees in 2013.
The residence hall rate for double room rate for undergraduate students will increase by $108.
In addition to the room increase, the silver unlimited dining plan for transfer, freshmen and returning students will increase $152.
"It represents the lowest rate in 18 years that we have on record," vice president for auxiliary enterprises Vennie Gore said.
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Gore said Spartan Village and University Village will have no rate increase.
4. MSU's 1855 Place is set to open in August 2017.
"It's intended to help support many of our graduate students who have families," Gore said. "Our rates are the third lowest in the Big Ten."
1855 Place will be open for occupancy in August 2017. Model units of the building will be able to be seen in August 2016.
The 2016-17 1855 one bedroom family apartment will cost $800 per month. The two bedroom family apartment will cost $925 per month.
1855 Place's parking lot is officially opened today, ahead of schedule.
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5. Engineering research complex expansion
The board voted to expand the Fraunhofer Center for Coatings and Diamond Technologies, or CCD. The preliminary project cost estimate range $5,500,000 to $7,200,000.
6. Academic governance
For clarification purposes, the board voted to revise the Bylaws of Academic Governance.
The revision included changing the National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory to Facility for Rare Isotope Beams, or FRIB.
7. Public participation at the trustee meeting included presentations from Liberate MSU and racial climate.
Four speakers discussed different issues when they addressed the board.
"The core of what they put out in their list of demands seemed very fair and in line of what COGS values are," Council of Graduate Students president Dee Jordan said.
Jordan said COGS will not always support how people express their activism, but students have a right to voice their concerns.
Shelby Ray Pumphrey, a member of the Sankofa Graduate Student Union, said the Department of African American and African Studies needs to have a major and MSU is the only program in the United States without a major for this program.
