CEU moving into USU’s picture
From chancellors, to tuition waivers, to financial exigency, the College of Eastern Utah’s Senate addressed in it’s regular meeting on Feb. 4, issues that may affect the college in the next few months.
Enrollment is up at CEU. According to preliminary numbers stated by interim president Mike King, headcount is up 13 percent and full-time-equivalence enrollment is up 11 percent. Budget related figures put the Price campus up six percent and the San Juan campus up 27 percent.
This archived article was written by: Ryan Ware
From chancellors, to tuition waivers, to financial exigency, the College of Eastern Utah’s Senate addressed in it’s regular meeting on Feb. 4, issues that may affect the college in the next few months.
Enrollment is up at CEU. According to preliminary numbers stated by interim president Mike King, headcount is up 13 percent and full-time-equivalence enrollment is up 11 percent. Budget related figures put the Price campus up six percent and the San Juan campus up 27 percent.
The college senate “postponed consideration of the proposed revision to the tuition-benefit policy so that we [senate members] could try to get answers to three-critical questions about how the cost of the benefit will be accounted for under the Utah State University regional-campus system,” according to Susan Neel, college senate chair.
“Right now, the various campuses in the USU system must reimburse Logan for any courses taken by employees and their dependents from other campuses. This could pose a serious drain on CEU’s budget,” she said.
“We are waiting to hear from the administrators in Logan if this would be the case for CEU after the merger. Also, we are trying to determine if the employee tuition benefit counts toward the state-mandated 10 percent limitation on tuition waivers,” according to Neel
The college senate is “waiting for a determination from the Regent’s office and the Utah Attorney General’s office. Until we [college senate members] have clear, concrete answers to these questions, it is not possible to make a good decision about the proposed change,” she said.
King briefly talked about financial exigency. “Financial exigency means financial urgency. The college is able to ignore current policies with a financial exigency in place. Financial exigency is last resort tool.”
“It [financial exigency] would have to be considered if the legislature enacts a five percent budget cut the next fiscal year,” according to Kim Burgess of The Herald Journal.
In another agenda item, Greg Benson, interim vice president of academic affairs, discussed the future USU-CEU chancellor position. As a member of the search committee, he said the USU-CEU chancellor search is underway. In order to form a better job description, Benson has been compiling a list of issues with CEU; professional qualities the three-person team will be looking for. He is hoping to finish this list in February and looking to have a chancellor in place by July 1.
As CEU moves into USU’s picture, the memorandum of understanding in place allows internal governance to exist as is until administration at USU says otherwise. This is a concern that has yet to be more thoroughly addressed.
