Arabic, Chinese majors, land sale approved by Board of Regents

Trey Crumbie

Approval of both a Chinese and Arabic major and minor were just two of the many items approved at Friday’s Board of Regents meeting.

The Board of Regents held their final quarterly meeting Friday morning in the Cornelius A. Martin Regents Room in Mass Media and Technology Hall. All action items were approved.

The two new majors are set to be implemented next semester.

Patricia Minter, faculty regent, said the majors will help with WKU’s academic credentials.

“You can’t be serious if you don’t teach Arabic and Chinese as a major,” Minter said.

The regents also approved the split of the department of psychology, creating the new department of psychological studies.

Other items that were approved include the employment contract for softball coach Amy Tudor and the approval to sell land to the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet to build a roundabout on the intersection between 31-W Bypass and University Boulevard. The land will be sold for $463,100, with construction slated to begin in April.

An employment agreement for chief of staff and general counsel, Deborah Wilkins, was also approved. In the agreement, Wilkins will only serve as general counsel, and WKU reserves the right to reassign her to another position within the university. Wilkins will still keep the pay of her current position if she is reassigned.

All of the finance and budget items, including the acceptance to file 2013-2014 first quarter statement of revenues and expenditures, were approved.

Also approved was an internal audit plan which will create a senior staff auditor position within the university. The senior staff auditor will be responsible for reviewing finance-related affairs for various departments on campus and will be paid an estimated $44,000.

Three information items were discussed. Among them was the subject of services provided for military students.

According to a document provided in the Board of Regents agenda, WKU has more than 1,700 students who identify as a military student this semester, not including those who have chosen not to identify as a military student. Military students include those on active duty, veterans and any dependents they may have.

Tonya Archey, director of military student services, said military students need assistance for a variety of reasons. Archey wanted to provide a helping hand through her department.

“We created a Veteran Resource Center in order to help the total student body of our military students,” Archey said.

Archey said one of the most popular programs within the Veteran Resource Center is the Textbooks for Troops program. In the Textbooks for Troops program, the Veteran Resource Center take textbooks, loans them out to soldiers and the soldiers bring them back at the end of the semester.

“I call it the ultimate recycling program,” Archey said.

Other information items included how the degree approval process works and an updated map featuring how the purposed roundabout will look after it is built.

The Board of Regents also approved an Honorary Doctorate Degree to Zuheir Sofia and swore in a new member, Gillard Johnson.