The Board of Trustees met publicly to discuss becoming a laptop campus, adjustments to MA in fine arts program tuition, enrollment deposit, and associated fees, and a motion to approve capital projects that have been funded by state appropriations on Thursday, Oct. 28 at 1 p.m.
At the start of the meeting, the Board of Trustees Chair, Glenn McCall, introduced WU Students For Change member Milo Wolverton to speak in favor of Title IX and bring up concerns about the new Title IX and ADA Compliance Officer position.
“I’m here to talk about Title IX because someone needs to stand up here and tell you that this board’s inaction has made all of you complicit with rape culture,” Wolverton said. “Sexual predators still work for this school.
“The deans who retraumatize students are still investigating Title IX cases when we were promised that [they were] removed. The old Title IX coordinator violated multiple timeline laws as she has essentially been promoted to the new coordinator’s boss.
“While we’re at it, the new coordinator is coming from a school of multiple lawsuits for mishandling assault cases. The new position we were promised would be dedicated solely to Title IX is actually being split with the rule ADA compliance officer, doing a massive disservice to not only survivors but to students with disabilities as well.”
He went on to convey his disappointment with the updated sexual misconduct policy and the fraternity Pi Kappa Alpha, which has been under scrutiny from students after resurfaced sexual assault allegations.
“The new sexual assault policies are blatantly homophobic, transphobic,” Wolverton said. “The Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity covered up my wife’s rape and never faced a single question for their actions, and your own board member, Robby Sisco, is proudly featured all over their page.
“I genuinely want to know, do you really think that this is good enough? Do you really feel as if you’ve done your jobs?
“You all should be ashamed of yourselves, and I want you to know that we hold each and every one of you responsible. Your silence is violence. Your inaction has enabled rape culture on our campus, and all the excuses in the world won’t work on us anymore.
“Do more and do better or step down and get the hell out of the way for someone who actually will. We’re done.”
In McCall’s immediate response to Wolverton’s speech, he stated, “Thank you very much for your comments, and now we’ll move on to our agenda. Well, before we get to that, we would like to welcome, he’s not here officially yet, but our new Title IX coordinator, Kevin Sheppard. … I’m so happy to have you, and your experience is impeccable — and we think that you’ll do a great job here at Winthrop for us. Thank you for joining this great institution. We appreciate that.”
McCall then moved on to propose for Winthrop to become a laptop campus.
“The resolution that we are requesting that administration be charged with developing a robust laptop program that includes adequate Wi–Fi, technological support while minimizing the financial impact of being in–person.,” McCall said.
After McCall asked the board if there was any discussion on the revolution, all board members voted on the motion to pass.
“Already we have instituted new practices in enrollment that we think will positively impact our application unit and consequent enrollment for this next year, fall 2022. … The impact of past budgeting practices can incur enrollment,” McCall said.
McCall introduced Dr. Randy Imler on the committee of strategic planning.
“The committee considered a list of capital projects to be funded with $7.5 million of capital funding, the resolution was considered proposed, motion was made, passed unanimously and made a resolution to accept that project list to the committee of finance,” Imler said, noting that this was the first meeting of the committee under the new bylaws. “James also reviewed the status of the campus master plan.
“We also discussed forthcoming proposals for allocating $9.2 million of state funding for repairs for maintenance and HERD funding for Wi–Fi improvements as Hynd mentioned in his comments.”
Representing the committee of finance, trustee Gary Williams announced, “We did also receive a report from our finance department that gave us some information on our year–end forecast update. I’m very pleased to report that as we continue to look at our forecasting methodologies that we’re very happy. … The forecasting model is working well, and we were very glad to get that information this morning.”
After coming to a resolution on enrollment deposit and associated fees, the board moved forward to unanimously pass a proposal to make tuition $699 per credit hour for the Master of Arts – Arts Administration online graduate program for the 2022-23 academic year.
