Housing rates

The Trustee Finance Committee will recommend the board approve a 5.25 percent increase in rates for students living in residence halls and university apartments.

The increase would bring housing rates to $7,026 for students selecting the silver unlimited meal plan and $6,695 for students selecting the prime 15 basic meal plan, or an increase of $206 and $189 per year, respectively.

For university apartments, monthly rates will increase from $630 to $665 for a one-bedroom apartment and from $699 to $735 for a two-bedroom apartment.

For university village apartments, the recommendation is for a 5 percent increase and would increase the monthly rate from $600 to $630 per bedroom.

“It’s been in that area (5 percent increase) the last few years,” MSU Trustee Donald Nugent said. “One thing we did manage was to successfully keep it down below the rest of the Big Ten schools.”

Mission statement

The Trustee Policy Committee will recommend the board shorten and revise the MSU mission statement.

The previous mission statement was approved by the board in 1982 and is 952 words.

“It’s pages and pages,” MSU Trustee Colleen McNamara said. “No university mission statement has something that long.”

MSU Provost Kim Wilcox wrote the revised statement, which has been reviewed several times by university officials.

“We’re scaling it back much more succinctly to about three paragraphs, to be more streamlined, more punchy,” McNamara said.

Projects

The board will vote whether to proceed on construction projects for Wharton Center and MSU’s National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory. The projects will cost an estimated $18.5 million and $16 million, respectively.

Trustees said larger issues — such as setting tuition for next year — will take place after the state of Michigan approves its budget.

“If the state would approve the budget for next year, we’d know where we are,” Nugent said. “It used to be we could do this in May. Then it was June, and now it’s July. That’s kind of out of our control.”