At a UF Board of Trustees committee meeting Thursday, members unanimously approved tenure for new hires and a raise in the cost of student living.
Members unanimously approved a 3.5-percent raise in the cost of student housing at the Committee on Educational Policy and Strategy.
The new rates will affect undergraduate, graduate and family housing. Rates at Maguire Village, however, are increasing between 7 and about 9 percent.
The property used to belong to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and was built for low-income housing, said Norbert Dunkel, associate vice president for student affairs and director of housing and residence education.
“When we paid off the loan in September 2012, we worked with the graduate students, and they agreed to increase their rent over a three-year-period,” Dunkel said.
This increase is the last of the three and will bring it to the same cost as University Village South, another graduate student residence hall. The new rates will take effect in the Fall, Dunkel said.
The members also approved tenure for 12 new faculty members, pending their official hiring.
Four of the new faculty members would be in the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences, one in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, four in the College of Medicine, two in the College of Medicine and Public Health and Health Professions and one in the College of Veterinary Medicine.
At the beginning of the meeting, the co-presidents of Graduate Assistants United addressed the committee members about lowering graduate assistant fees.
“We want to let them know that addressing the burden of fees, fee relief as we put it, is essential to making their goal, and the goal of all of us, of becoming a top research university,” said John Hames, one of the presidents.
The group will continue to discuss graduate assistant fees at 10 a.m. today outside Emerson Alumni Hall, where UF President Fuchs will hold a strategic discussion with the Board of Trustees on UF’s preeminence plan.
GAU members will set up a table outside for graduate assistants to speak about the fees, which average $1,400 annually.
Diana Moreno, the chief coordinator for GAU, said she wants the open forum to further facilitate conversation between students and trustees.
“We want this to be a two-way conversation,” she said. “We would like to hear from them, and we invite them to have a seat at GAU’s table to speak with us on what their perspectives are.”
Moreno said she believes addressing the organization’s request for graduate assistant fee reduction is crucial for UF to enter national academic prominence.
“We believe the preeminence campaign could only happen if the board and GAU work collaboratively with graduate assistants, students, faculty and staff,” she said.
UF spokeswoman Janine Sikes wrote in an email that the Board of Trustees doesn’t have official plans to attend the forum.
“The Board of Trustees will not take up any GAU issues in their meetings,” Sikes said. “Any discussions are reserved for the collective bargaining process.”
Moreno said GAU plans to continue Thursday’s discussion between board members and graduate assistants.
“We’re offering coffee, bagels and casual conversation,” she said.
[A version of this story ran on page 1 - 4 on 4/3/2015 under the headline “Board of Trustees: cost of student living to increase”]
