Scott Westerman, executive director of the MSU Alumni Association, said in an e-mail the association’s offices on the second floor are planned to move up to the third floor, where most of the University Advancement team is located. The goal is to have all of the customer-facing operations in one place, he said.

The budget for the project currently is set at $2.2 million.

The association’s role in impacting donor investment in MSU is growing increasingly, Westerman said in an e-mail.

“As public funding for higher education continues to be squeezed, these men and women of vision will give MSU a margin of excellence to ensure an outstanding educational experience for generations of Spartans to come,” he said in the e-mail.

The board also approved plans to move forward with about $2.5 million worth of renovations to the College of Music’s auditorium, a space that serves as the “central hub” of the college and hasn’t seen major upgrades since it was built in 1940, said James Forger, dean of the College of Music.

Plans are slated to include added seating, improving acoustics and installing air conditioning — which the space currently lacks.

“It’s difficult to do recitals in 95 degrees,” Forger said at the meeting. “We don’t promote performance in bathing suits … so it would be a great addition.”

MSU Trustee Brian Breslin said the sound isolation improvements the facility is planned to receive will be “tremendous” for the college’s students and faculty.

“Right now they can hear trucks coming to a loading dock (as) they’re trying to concentrate on a recital or something and it could be really disruptive,” he said. “I think that (the renovations) are going to help tremendously in an area of a university that wants to have offerings for everybody.”

The board also approved a bid contract for $2.8 million to E.T. MacKenzie Company for the demolition of Cherry Lane and Faculty Bricks apartments on Harrison Road. The budget for the project is set at $5.3 million.

Janet Kreger, a Cherry Lane resident since 1997, said tearing down the apartments does not go along with MSU’s “Be Spartan Green” motto. Kreger said she strives to maintain a low environmental footprint and feels the efforts she makes to conserve are being canceled out with the waste of the facility’s resources.

“My lifetime of energy savings is being negated,” said Kreger, who will move out of the apartments this summer.

The apartments serve as a main housing area for international students and faculty on campus, she said. Since many of them don’t have a car on campus, the buildings are a perfect location to walk to campus, Kreger said.

The board also approved two faculty positions during the meeting — Mark Burnham as the new vice president of governmental affairs and Doug Buhler as interim dean for the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources.

Burnham said he will be working in the coming weeks to analyze the state budget proposal and submit a university response to the legislature.

“We’re going to have to be dealing not only with figuring out what’s best for the university … but also what other ancillary cuts are going to impact programs,” Burnham said, citing funding to MSU Extension as an example.

A proposal to merge the Department of Spanish and Portuguese with the Department of French, Classics and Italian to form a Department of Romance and Classical Studies also was approved by the board, as was a $24.9 million bid contract for upcoming renovations to Bailey and Rather halls.