Graduate housing rates, additional space for Global Campus, bargaining on agenda Thursday Board of Trustees meeting

The Central Michigan University Board of Trustees will host its formal February committee meeting Thursday morning.

Committee meetings start at 10:30 a.m. Wednesday in the President’s Conference Room with the Finance and Facilities Committee, followed by the College of Medicine committee at 11:10 a.m. and the Academic and Student Affairs committee at 11:40 a.m.

The Trustees-Faculty Liaison and Trustees-Student Liaison will take place at 5 p.m. in the Lake Michigan Room and the President’s Conference Room, respectively. All meetings are free and open to the public.

The Finance and Facilities Committee will bring a number of proposals before the board on Thursday, including collective bargaining agreements, graduate student housing room and board rates and the purchase of land in Detroit to implement another Global Campus location in Michigan.

Graduate student housing rates for the 2013-14 school year include all utilities: heat, air conditioning, electrical, water, Internet, cable television, washer and dryer.

Rates for these apartments start at $665 for a one-bedroom apartment and go up to $1,400 for a four-bedroom apartment. Rates are calculated on a per-month basis and will go into effect April 1.

The Finance and Facilities Committee will also discuss leasing space in Detroit for the Global Campus program.

The university is looking to lease 4,000-square-feet of space in Detroit for up to seven years. This space will include offices and one large multi-purpose room that will be used for hybrid classes, along with other events.

The funding for the space will be provided by university reserves and is not to exceed $143,000 per year.

The committee has requested that University President George Ross ratify and sign collective bargaining agreements with the four different bargaining units, including the Michigan Federation of Teachers for the Graduate Student Union.

Graduate Student Union President Michelle Campbell wanted this action put on the board during December’s meeting.

“Unlike other bargaining units on campus, our members on the bargaining team do not receive leave time to bargain,” Campbell told the trustees during December’s meeting. “Asking our members to bargain so late in the semester, when our jobs and our classes are only piling on more work, is, as we see it, not an attempt by the university to bargain in good faith for a fair contract.”

In tradition with CMU’s typical bargaining timeline, Ross said bargaining would wait until February.

“Typically and historically, (we) have brought to the board of trustees in the winter and spring meetings the authority to negotiate,” Ross told CM Life in December. “We have nine unions on this campus, and we treat them all the same.”

The formal meeting will be held at 9 a.m. Thursday in the President’s Conference Room.