MINUTES OF A REGULAR MEETING OF THE BOARD OF VISITORS OF
VIRGINIA COMMONWEALTH UNIVERSITY
July 20, 1972
A regular meeting of the Board of Visitors of Virginia Commonwealth
University was held on Thursday, July 20, 1972, at 10:00 a.m. in the Presi-
dent's Dining Room.
Present were all the members of the Board except Miss Keyser. Also
present were Drs. Brandt, Brooke, Neal, Strandberg, Willett, Wilson and
Yingling; Messrs. Holmes and Imirie, and Miss Cosby.
Mr. Scott called the meeting to order. The following minutes were
approved, on motion made, seconded and unanimously approved: Special
Meeting of the Property Committee, held May 15, 1972; Regular Meeting of
the Board of Visitors, held May 18, 1972; Special Meeting of the Property
Committee, held June 23, 1972; and Special Meetings of the Finance Committee,
held June 6 and July 6, 1972.
Dr. Brandt presented the Educational and General Proposed Budget,
1972-73. On behalf of the Finance Committee, Mr. McGehee recommended
that the proposed budget be approved by the Board. On motion duly made
and seconded, the proposed budget was approved.
On behalf of the Finance Committee, Mr. McGehee submitted the
Proposed Hospital Budget for 1972-73 to the Board. On motion made and
seconded, the proposed budget was approved unanimously.
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The Hospital Accounts Report was unanimously approved on motion
made and seconded.
A report on the special award program of the Burroughs-Wellcome
Fund was given and Dr. Brandt stated that the University will check further
into its activities. Upon motion duly made and seconded, the Report on
Gifts, Grants and Contracts was approved unanimously.
It was agreed that the agenda section on Faculty Appointments and
Changes of Status should set forth the details when faculty members receive
a part of their salary from VCU and a part from another institution or agency.
In response to a question, Dr. Brooke discussed the question of tenure for
Mrs. Clare Houghton of the Library Science Department.
Dr. Brooke and Dr. Neal briefly described the new department chair-
men who will be joining the University. On motion duly made and seconded,
the Faculty Appointments and Changes of Status were unanimously approved.
Following a lengthy discussion of the Governor's letter relating to
the Task Force Report on the hospital situation, it was moved, seconded and
unanimously approved that the Rector appoint a committee to study the situa-
tion and to prepare a report for the Governor.
The report of the Nominating Committee was presented by Mr. Dabney.
The committee presented the following nominations for the officers of the
Board during the ensuing year: Rector - Dr. Wyndham B. Blanton, Jr.; Vice
Rector - Mr. S. Buford Scott; Secretary - Mr. Richard D. Obenshain. On
motion duly made and seconded, the nominations were adopted and these
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officers were unanimously elected. The Nominating Committee proposed the
following members to serve as the Executive Committee during the ensuing
year: Drs. Blanton and Gwathmey, and Messrs. Dabney, Obenshain, Scott,
Sheffield and Turnbull. On motion duly made and seconded, the foregoing
were unanimously elected.
The Board then went into Executive Session, with Dr. Brandt and
Miss Cosby remaining. The recommended salaries of the Vice Presidents
were approved.
Following lunch, Dr. Blanton thanked the Board for electing him Rector.
Dr. Doris B. Yingling, Dean of the School of Nursing, explained the
three major goals of the School of Nursing, education, research and service,
and how the goals were to be attained and balanced.
Dr. Warren Strandberg, Dean of the School of Education, discussed
some of the plans for the School. He hopes to achieve a much more fluid
movement between the campus and the area classrooms.
After the report of the President, the meeting was adjourned at 4:20 p.m.
Secretary
APPROVED:
Chairman
Report of the President to the Board of Visitors
July 20, 1972
Dr. Brandt reported that the Board had given very generously to the Annual
Fund this year, but the total amount was not as great as we had hoped. We
believe that we will be able to build on the experience and do a better job
next year.
Large signs have been erected on I-95 designating the exits for VCU. Signs
for I-64 are being worked on.
The student government situation will be discussed this afternoon at the
University Assembly meeting. Some interim procedures are to be decided
upon to get us through this coming year without an official student govern-
ment.
SOAR, Summer Orientation Advising and Registration, was started recently.
Freshmen and parents are coming to the campus for approximately 28 hours.
All tours, advising and registration are taken care of at this time.
Between June and September, 129 new nurses are being added to the hospital.
This is a result of intensive recruiting that has been going on for a year.
This fall, we will be taking about eleven nursing students from Radford
College. Radford had to close its nursing program temporarily because of
the difficulty of hiring faculty.
There is $2.7 million in the VA budget for a new VA hospital in Richmond
without a designated location for it. If any members of the Board know
someone who will have input into the location of the VA hospital, please put
in a good word for VCU. At some point, this will boil down to whether or
not we can get President Nixon's support. We are increasing our involve-
ment with the VA hospital and are developing a close relationship with the
new director. Several other decisions depend on the outcome of the location
of the VA hospital.
Planning for the new hospital structure continues to be top priority. We have
spent close to $175,000 doing a study in order to demonstrate to the State
that the hospital will be financially feasible. Hopefully, the study will be
complete by mid-September.
The Associates of the Library have been bringing in good collections of personal
papers to the Cabell Library. We are trying to develop a group that will develop
support for both libraries in a variety of interest areas.
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Ground will be broken this fall for the 1, 700-car parking deck, for the Science
and Education Building and for three floors of the Library. Air rights for the
Science and Education Building are being rented from the City. There was a
legal problem deciding how to determine the rent to be charged.
We are due to get a bill from the City for the use of City property in lieu of
taxes. If that happens, we will have to raise the question of indigent patient
care costs for the City.
The Property Committee reviewed the drawings of the Science and Education
Building and requested that the architects re-design two sides of the building.
After the Property Committee approved the new design, the Art Commission
would not approve it. It was re-designed, and the Art Commission approved
that plan.
Renovations in the hospitals are making improvements. Some space is being
rented at the corner of Seventh and Marshall Streets and on Governor Street
so that room can be made for the changes.
Architects for the Pharmacy, Nursing, Allied Health Building have been chosen.
They are beginning to work on the planning.
Graduation received a very good response, with one exception. We had 2,430
graduates. Twenty-seven percent were post baccalaureate degrees.
We have an improved computer and some new programs that go with it. SHAS,
a sophisticated hospital accounting system, is part of the package. On May
19, we stopped using the small computer on East Campus. We are still not
functioning fully. Some of the problems have been management ones, and
some have been IBM software. Since May 19 until last week, no bill had
been submitted from the hospital. We are now two months behind on billing,
but we are beginning to submit bills. Blue Cross has loaned us money so we
are managing to get by without collections. Because of the computer being
shut down, we have had problems with a new payroll package. Last week,
paychecks were late for some people.
The Governor's Planning Conference was very informative. We got to know
why the Governor selected a non-educator for Secretary of Education. The
Governor was disappointed at the lack of attendance on the part of the Boards
of various institutions.
Dr. Russell A. Ackoff of the University of Pennsylvania was invited to address
the Vice Presidents, Deans and Department Chairmen one day in June. I hope
that some of his enthusiasm and stimulation rubbed off on our people.
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By the next Board meeting, we hope to have the Rules and Procedures to the
Board for approval. We have been under interim rules since September, 1970.
The June flood left the hospital running on emergency power for five days.
Everyone in the institution worked very hard to keep things running as smoothly
as possible. We were without drinking water in the hospital for several days.
Approximately 7,800 people applied for admission to the West Campus. We
expect about 3,000 to 3,100 entering students in the fall.
Hospitalization for faculty and employees is now in effect. We picked that
time to cut off special hospital privileges to persons in the hospital.
Vincent Wright gave an interview to the newspaper saying that he had not
submitted his resignation to VCU. The agreed-upon statement to the news-
paper between VCU and Wright said that VCU had agreed to accept his
resignation effective October 8, 1971. Neither VCU nor Wright was to say
anything more to the press.
Engineering Technology is now part of the Community College system.
A crane was dropped on the power lines downtown recently which caused a
loss of power in the hospital. The emergency generator started to switch on,
but the switch got hung in the middle. It took about 30 minutes to find the
problem while open-heart surgery was taking place.
ID cards were made for the Board members this morning so that they will have
proof that they are Board members for things such as using the Library.
