President-elect Lester Lefton listens during the Board of Trustees meeting Wednesday beside Phillip Cartwright, President Carol Cartwright’s husband. It is the last Board of Trustees meeting that she will preside over. MICHELE ROEHRIG | SUMMER KENT STATER

Credit: Carl Schierhorn

President Carol Cartwright presides over her last Board of Trustees meeting yesterday in the Urban Conference Room in the Library. MICHELE ROEHRIG | SUMMER KENT STATER

Credit: Carl Schierhorn

     Amid applause and farewell wishes to President Carol Cartwright, the Board of Trustees announced changing the name of the Auditorium to Carol A. Cartwright Hall in her honor, effective July 1.

“President Cartwright has assumed a place in history not only at Kent State University but also as the first woman president of a state university in Ohio,” Vice Chairwoman Sandra Harbrecht said.

Harbrecht said the title is “a symbol of the high esteem in which Dr. Cartwright will always be held throughout the Kent State community and far beyond.”

The board held its last meeting for the academic year Wednesday afternoon.

It also voted to increase tuition for the 2006 to 2007 academic school year.

There will be a 6 percent increase for undergraduate tuition at the Kent campus and for upper division courses at Kent State’s regional campuses. Tuition for lower division courses at regional campuses will increase by 4 percent.

“We think we’re doing everything right fiscally,” said Chairman R. Douglas Cowan. “But there are issues in the state that need to be resolved.”

With decreasing state support for higher education, it is frustrating to see costs shifted to students, Cartwright said, but universities have to maintain the quality of higher education.

To recognize those who have helped students and Kent State afford that kind of quality, the trustees approved the naming of two other areas at the university.

After providing more than $4 million total to athletic students and programs, Akron resident Olga A. Mural received an honor for her commitment to the university in the form of a baseball field. The board, on behalf of the Department of Intercollegiate Athletics, approved the dedication of the Olga A. Mural Baseball Field. Kent State Baseball received $1 million from Mural this month to renovate the baseball facilities and provide scholarships to student athletes, Harbrecht said.

The third honor was also to a benefactor to the university. The trustees approved naming Rockwell Hall’s design wing the Burton D. Morgan and Margaret C. Morgan Fashion Design Wing, after the benefactors of The Burton D. Morgan Foundation.

By giving more than $2.5 million to the Shannon Rodgers and Jerry Silverman School of Fashion Design and Merchandising, the foundation has provided several technological resources for the school, Harbrecht said.

In other business:

• The board approved the Doctorate degree of Philosophy degree in translation to be effective Fall 2006. Kent State will now offer the only complete undergraduate, graduate and doctoral sequence in the field, said trustee Andrew Banks.

• The board discussed the extension of the associate degree of Applied Science in Radiologic Technology to the Ashtabula campus. The program is currently offered at Salem Campus, and with increasing applicants and limited space, the extended program will offer more opportunities to the students who wish to enroll in the program, Banks said, and will become effective Spring 2007.

• The trustees voted to officially oppose the TEL amendment to the Ohio constitution. The amendment would permanently restrict state spending, limiting the state’s ability to respond to increasingly rapid changes in the economy, according to the board’s resolution.

• The board also approved increasing, creating and eliminating special course fees and other student fees for the next year.

• Next year’s university’s budget is “prudent” and emphasizes cost control and increased funding for student aid, Mullins said. The approved budget for the Kent campus is $254.8 million, and the regional campuses’ budget is $74.3 million. These will allow for $1 million in faculty and advising positions, $1.7 million in institutional financial aid and $650,000 for operations and utilities, according to the resolution.

In conclusion of Kent State’s 96th academic year, the trustees approved the appointments for the next board with Harbrecht as chairwoman, Pat Mullins as vice chairman and James M. Biggar as secretary. Cartwright, who noted with pride the achievements of the faculty and students, was resolved president emeritus as of July 1.

“Working with you and getting to know you was a professional privilege and a personal pleasure,” she said.

Contact Summer Stater editor Jackie Mantey at [email protected] and copy desk chief Rachel Abbey at [email protected].