[Speaker 3] (0:03 - 1:27)
Okay, it is five o'clock, January 16th. I hereby call the meeting to order and establish that we do have a quorum present and I invite Regent Sudenmore Fontenot to lead us in invocation and pledge to the flags. Okay, next up we have student spotlight.

[Speaker 16] (1:36 - 1:44)
I had the pleasure of picking our student spotlight this week and it is a sophomore on our volleyball team. She is from Brazil and her name is Clarissa Diaz.

[Speaker 5] (1:57 - 6:15)
Left home when I was 15, miss my family. Good afternoon everyone. My name is Clarissa Diaz and I'm from Brazil.

Today I'm gonna talk about how Lee college changed my life. Here's the first slide. It was the first season and next season, last season we had a lot of travel.

So here at Lee college we had an opportunity to know another state and another cities in Texas. So we went to Utah to a tournament and then we went to Vegas to a connection flight. We stayed there for three hours and then we play a little bit.

It was so fun and here in Texas we know a lot of cities and we found out a lot of tournaments and when I was working through office we went to a Texas NAM in Kingsville and Texas NAM in Corpus Christi. So it's a lot of opportunity to know a lot of people. You do like your networking and talk to everyone like coaches, students and it's a great opportunity.

Here it's my my support here. So I had a lot of friendship with security, with workers. So now I'm working on a student employment here at Lee college and they support me all the time.

So I have my coaches, they support me all the time and my friendship they helped me in volleyball with classes outside the court and with God. So last year I got my baptized so it's gonna be so important to me, Lee college and my friendship gonna be with my all life. Here I have some honors.

So last year I had honor with volleyball as well and this season I was the captain. So it was a great opportunity for me be international, be a leader of the team. So talk with my teammates, talk with the coaches was so grateful for me and I'm so grateful for my teammate and this season I got the honors with volleyball as well.

On my first semester here I got my 4.0 GPA so it's so nice to be here. Here's some pictures of my teammates with the opportunity we have to have the material to play volleyball and study. We got a lot of stuff, we got shoes, we got sleepers, we got backpack, shirts.

So it's so great and then I had my sophomore night and it was so special for me with my teammates made my locker room. Here at Lee college we have a lot of opportunities to know another culture. So we had the international week, was so fun.

I loved it. I could try a lot of food with Japan, Turkey, a lot of countries and then I had volunteer to a Special Olympics with Dr. Latier. So we had opportunity to help a lot of people and know a lot of people.

And my family support is always with me so I brought Lee college for my city. A lot of kids to play volleyball as well is so excited to come to get U.S. and play volleyball and study. So I love the networking is on my family with my shirt and at least Lee college have I have learning with my coach to always choose joy in everything I do.

Thank you.

[Speaker 3] (6:24 - 8:13)
And Clarissa we have a certificate of appreciation for you. Next we'll have disposition of the minutes audit and investment committee meeting December 12th 2024, building committee meeting December 18th 2024 and board meeting December 19th 2024. Do I have a motion on the minutes?

I have a motion by Regent Cotton and a second by Regent Warford. All in favor say aye. Any opposed?

Next up report of the chairman. I don't have anything to say other than you know what transpired at four o'clock. I think it was a historic moment of two boards coming together so I think that was a great thing.

But outside of today's events I don't really have anything to report. So next up I will call on Regent Hall to present the building committee report.

[Speaker 7] (8:18 - 10:07)
Building committee met on Wednesday January the 15th. We reviewed three items that will be presented to the board this evening for approval. The committee recommends approval of the three items.

Contract one, contract for underground survey of main campus utilities including water, sanitary, gas, electric, transmission and distribution and parking lot lighting and communication services owned by Lee College connecting to the municipal and franchise utilities from service connection to each meter, clean out, building etc. This is a total map of what's under the ground in our campus basically. This valuable data will be used to support the upcoming master planning effort as well as provide our facilities team with underground infrastructure location funded from the 2024-2025 operating budget and yes that be approved.

Award for construction of the cosmetology lab and relocation and renovation project at 700 West Texas Avenue. This project is program driven and will provide a larger space and support the cosmetology program in Baytown. This is funded by lost revenue funds.

And third approval of the agreement with PBHK architects for college facilities master planning services. The board previously approved PBHK to provide the services. This is the approval of the funding of the services.

This is funded from the 2024-2025 operating budget and we've received an update on current projects and we continue discussing scheduling tours of campus buildings for the building committee members. We will communicate the schedule and then extend an invitation to all board members who would like to participate.

[Speaker 3] (10:10 - 10:16)
Thank you. Policy committee. Audit and Investment Committee.

[Speaker 8] (10:16 - 10:24)
It was our plan to meet on Tuesday, but the meeting was canceled, so I'm not sure when I will have a report.

[Speaker 3] (10:25 - 10:51)
Okay. Supplemental board training report in compliance with policy BBD legal and BBD local. This is to report required training completed by board members.

The annual cybersecurity training completed by Regents Gina Guillory, Judy Geralds, Mark Hensel, Pam Warford, Daryl Fontenot, and Mark Hall. Report of the president.

[Speaker 12] (10:59 - 11:01)
Very close up, please.

[Speaker 1] (11:01 - 11:02)
Everybody.

[Speaker 12] (11:04 - 11:05)
Everybody. Is this close up enough?

[Speaker 1] (11:05 - 11:05)
Please.

[Speaker 12] (11:06 - 11:07)
I don't know, is that close up enough, Romero?

[Speaker 1] (11:10 - 18:57)
Okay, so I wanted to begin by thanking two very important teams of our college. Our amazing facilities team under the direction of John Ditto and in collaboration with Phillip Hanley and Mr. Mark Jaime, but also to our safety management team under the leadership of Tom Quinn. These two groups worked tirelessly to address electrical issues with the motor equipment failure that occurred at our north plant, but also just other facilities issues that came up during the week and before we got back.

But Tom kept us up to date on all the weather changes and provided us with regular updates to inform decisions affecting the college, and together the teams are going to continue working together. As we know, the weather is anticipated to get cooler and maybe with precipitation, so they'll be focused still this week on providing us information and updates and addressing things from the standpoint of facilities as they come up. But I'm grateful to them most especially for keeping the buildings warm.

You know, you can't have conducive conditions for teaching and learning unless basic needs like warmth are met. So that has been quickly addressed and I just want to make sure that we thank them for helping to ensure that we are safe and comfortable. I was delighted to find out, you may already know, that Lee College and our basketball team in particular were featured in the Baytown Sun's top 24 stories, our top 2024 stories of the year, so kudos to Lee College for being represented in that manner.

I have updated information on the number of graduates that I reported last meeting who completed their degrees and certificates in December, so we now have additional information and our actual increase is 17%. I said that last, last, at the last meeting that the increase was 11%, so I'm pleased to say I was wrong, but with the information that I had then it was 11 and now it's 17% of an increase, so very pleased with with that information to share with you. Let me move on to spring enrollment.

So the cold front that we did experience affected one major event we have, which is one-stop registration that is specifically designed to help students who are unavailable to attend during normal registration hours during the week and it's held on the weekend on Saturday, so that's a very important offering for our students and with that we we learned that several students who came to that event and from others that they were unable at that time to meet the payment deadline, so we delayed that payment deadline to ensure that they were able to register for classes and as always not delay their educational goals, and I want to thank the entire team who has worked on this and I'll get to that as well more. Our overall enrollment is up by 4.5% compared to last spring and I wanted to let you know though that we anticipate to have additional enrollment from the main campus as well as the Huntsville Center. They regularly lag the Huntsville Center, but again we do anticipate several more students joining us before the end at the main campus.

So in short, it's nice to be able to say that we have more new students coming in and more students graduating and I want to thank Scott, Dr. Scott Bennett and Dr. Marissa Moreno, as well as Dr. Carl Husband and all of our many student services employees who have worked tirelessly to serve our students during this time. It's busy normally, but it was especially busy this past week. Oh, speaking of Convocation Week, I wanted to mention first that on Monday of last week we honored a group of 21 faculty members across 11 academic divisions including representation from the Huntsville Center.

These 21 amazing faculty members volunteered their own time to participate in professional development training that was delivered by the Association of Colleges, College and University Educators or ACUE. The training covered four modules and spanned an entire semester when you add it all up. I'm incredibly proud of their efforts to improve student success through quality of education.

So thank you to all of them and they were, they all received in front of everyone else a medallion, a certificate and a pin for their participation and just so very grateful for them. And we have another group that's ready to begin training. We're building on that group and I think that first group kind of set the tone and increased the interest by other faculty members to participate, so we're excited about that.

Some other Convocation Week highlights I wanted to provide to the board. So the presentations were just outstanding and I really can say from my own perspective that they were truly just above others that I've seen in the past, just as a whole I would say. I'm really pleased that we were able to offer training and presentations to new employees as well as to adjunct faculty.

Staff also held informative sessions to all on available services to students and employees and we were also delighted to have members of the Huntsville Center re-entry specialist or re-entry team come and provide a presentation on what they do, which is helping our formerly incarcerated students become more acclimated and settled with the entering the free world and they did a tremendous job as well.

I'd also like to highlight an AI presentation, artificial intelligence presentation by English faculty who have been deep in extra work to address issues of AI, but they were there obviously to help their colleagues improve teaching and learning, but to ensure that we keep up with this entire AI revolution, which is truly a revolution, but a special thanks to our EEC team, our Empirical Educator team led by Karen Guthmiller and Charisse Letier, thank you guys for organizing with your team and then I also want to report on another item that affects one of our employees or was led by one of our employees, Sarah Tidwell, who is our Director of Advising and Counseling. She completed a year-long fellowship program with the Texas Association of Community Colleges where she focused her research on transfer, which as you know is a major priority for the college as a whole, so she engaged on that research and her research was accepted for publication and we are delighted to share that. I can share the link with you on that.

I don't know, David, if you would mind reminding me to share that link to the board, but we are so proud to have more representation of Lee College through research and publications, but again congratulations to Sarah who led all of that work. Our team does such a remarkable job representing Lee College and all things that they do, so just thanks again. And then finally, if you have not yet heard, Dr. Jessica Johnson, the Dayton ISD Superintendent, has announced her retirement at the end of the spring semester and we look forward to celebrating our partnership under her leadership and we look also forward to partnership partnership with her successor. That's all I have in my report.

[Speaker 3] (18:59 - 19:04)
Next up, report of Lee College resignations and or retirements.

[Speaker 1] (19:04 - 19:05)
There are none to report.

[Speaker 3] (19:06 - 19:21)
I'd like to hear it. Okay, next up is our financial report. Okay, great.

Yeah, I was gonna say, having heard Annette yesterday, I didn't think she was any shape to present today.

[Speaker 4] (19:28 - 19:30)
I think you may want to be a little bit closer.

[Speaker 1] (19:30 - 19:34)
I'm channeling Adari there, but and David.

[Speaker 4] (19:34 - 24:59)
Is that better? Okay, good evening Board of Regents and Dr. Villanueva. Tonight we're going to cover the financials for as of December 31st, our fourth month of the fiscal year.

We're going to begin with cash and investments. Remain pretty strong. Our operating is 13.6, restricted at 31.2 and other funds at 10.4, giving us a total of 56 million. Last year, excuse me, last year at this time we were at about 45 million operating or total cash and investments. We have our tuition and fee revenues. We're at 81 percent.

This includes fall and some of spring. We are, as of December, we weren't complete with the spring enrollment as Dr. V had mentioned. After collections of spring, we should be about 87 percent, so you can see we're slightly behind, but we'll see, we'll get a better picture in the January report.

We are state appropriations. We've only received one payment in October. We will receive another 2.5 in February. Our taxes, tax revenues started coming in in December. We're seeing steady deposits every day, so the bulk of the tax revenue usually comes in in January and early part of February because of the deadlines. So next month you'll see stronger tax revenue collected.

And the revenue in lieu of taxes, we've received 2.184 million. We are expecting one more payment, about 47,000, but that's going to be it. We're projecting and we are aware of it that our in lieu taxes are going to have a shortfall of about 630,000 for the year, so that's a known shortfall at the end of the year.

Other revenues total about 375,000 primarily because of the CAFE, the TDCJ reimbursements, and shared positions we have with the ISDs. Interesting kind of 824,000. It's holding steady.

Restricted funds, we're under about 480,000. It's primarily from the Perkins revenue, grant revenues that we haven't received as of December, but as of today we received 255,000. There we have our projected revenues that we project to receive over the next eight months.

You can see we're slightly under on tuition and fees and under on the district taxes and other revenues. As of December we are projecting an operating deficit of about 936,000. This is primarily due to the in lieu of taxes that I mentioned earlier.

We do have some savings and expenses and I'll go over that next. Here we're projecting, we're looking at a breakdown of our expenses and you can see where we're budgeting salaries and benefits at 57% and we're projecting only to come in at 56.6% of that, so we're slightly under on that and we'll be right about the same for operating. This shows our projected budget and actual for the month of December.

You can see here the operating costs are under and the salary benefits are also under projected. Here we have our projected year to date, which is four months from September to December. Our operating costs are right at what we've budgeted, but our salary and benefits are coming in under budget.

And lastly we have the total budget and actual projected for the year. We're projecting to come in at 98.5% for salary and benefits, operating cost as of now at 97.25% and debt service at 100%. And that concludes my presentation.

Any questions?

[Speaker 1] (25:01 - 25:16)
I don't have a question, but I just want to commend you on taking the responsibility at the very last minute. Yes, yes, this morning I mean just being asked and then having to go through the whole thing, so thank you for stepping up. We appreciate it.

[Speaker 15] (25:17 - 25:19)
I have ten questions, are you ready?

[Speaker 11] (25:26 - 25:36)
I don't know much about the tax. Can you explain why? Is there anything that we can control over that when we're projecting?

[Speaker 4] (25:36 - 25:50)
Normally we budget less, but the values came in lower and then we decreased the tax rate, so that compounded on top of that.

[Speaker 3] (25:55 - 26:00)
Regent Warford, that one's always a wild card every year at budget time, it's like, okay.

[Speaker 12] (26:01 - 26:16)
Please, please, please, Regent Warford and all Regents, get close to your microphone because the recording doesn't, I don't know what else to do, I'm sorry.

[Speaker 3] (26:16 - 26:30)
Any other questions? Thank you. All right, before we move into public comment, I'm going to turn it back over to Dr. V.

[Speaker 1] (26:31 - 27:56)
Are we sharing microphones or was that just, I'm kidding. I forgot to add in my president's report that one of the things that we often engage in and many organizations engage in when we see something we really like, we follow something called the case method which is to copy and steal everything and that is what has resulted in this scarf you see in front of you. So a year ago when we were attending the community college day at the Capitol, we noticed that one of our colleagues, Galveston College, were wearing, all of the folks that were there, were wearing something like this in their colors and whatever they do.

Brian, was it similar in color or two or was blue? Okay, but again under the leadership of Brian and his team, they were able to put together this scarf for us. Every board member has it at their place and I think this was good stealing and copying on our part and so every board member will have them and we are working with Michelle internally who leads our spirit shop to add this to our inventory of things that individuals can purchase on their own.

So there you go. If it gets cold this weekend and it's supposed to or it stays cold, here you go.

[Speaker 3] (27:58 - 28:00)
Okay, next up is public comment.

[Speaker 12] (28:01 - 28:02)
No one signed up, Mr. Chairman.

[Speaker 3] (28:03 - 29:40)
Thank you very much. Next we have consent agenda. Okay, the consent agenda consideration of new hires.

The administration recommends that the board approve the new hires as presented below. We'll entertain a motion. I have a motion by Regent Geralds and a second by Regent Morfantino and any discussion on this?

Okay, all in favor say aye. Any opposed? Moving on to new business.

Consideration of the contract for underground survey of main campus utilities. The administration recommends that the board authorize the president or her designee to negotiate final terms and award the contract to the Rios group for the underground survey of the main campus utilities for the sum of $174,500. Do I have a motion on this item?

Do I have a second? Okay, I have a motion by Regent Hall and a second by Regent Warford. Any discussion on this item?

As Regent Hall mentioned earlier, this was one of the items we discussed at the building committee meeting.

[Speaker 7] (29:41 - 30:00)
If we weren't doing it with them, we would have to be doing it with PVK and the cost would have been higher. This came in by the time of the upcharge and I think it came in maybe a hundred thousand or so under what we were expecting. Money saving.

[Speaker 3] (30:03 - 30:53)
Okay, any other discussion? Hearing none, all in favor say aye. Any opposed?

Next item, consideration of award for construction of the cosmetology lab relocation and renovation project at 700 West Texas Avenue. The administration recommends that the board authorize the president or her designee to negotiate final terms and award the construction of the cosmetology lab relocation and renovation project to M. Scott Construction for the sum of $3,179,000.

Do I have a motion on this item?

[Speaker 17] (30:53 - 30:55)
I'll move. Second.

[Speaker 3] (30:58 - 31:06)
Who was the second? Okay, I have a motion by Regent Cotton and a second by Regent Geralds. Any discussion on this item?

[Speaker 2] (31:08 - 31:18)
Yes, I have a couple of questions and someone kind of explained what we're doing and where we're doing it at. I think I understand it, but I'm not totally sure. Yes.

It's like you're prepared.

[Speaker 6] (31:20 - 31:32)
I hope so. Yeah, we are moving the cosmetology. It's in TVA right now and that building is a temperate, you know, metal building in a really bad shape, so we are moving that to 700 West Texas where the bookstore was.

[Speaker 2] (31:33 - 31:39)
Do we have cosmetology at on I-10 and Maynard anymore? That's been gone. That's been gone.

There's none out there.

[Speaker 1] (31:40 - 31:52)
That was due to increased demand for contract training and it didn't quite fit with the offerings that we had at McNair prior to cosmetology being located.

[Speaker 6] (31:54 - 32:55)
Right now at McNair we have like 3,358 square feet in McNair itself. We have a small storage shed at 125 square feet. We have an office for faculty in TV 1 at 150 square feet and a classroom they use in TV 2 that's 700 square feet, so it's just over 4,300 square feet right now.

And in the existing building where we will be remodeling, it's 3,900 square feet at 700 West Texas. We're going to add on another 2530 within that garage overhang or that where they parking for the students now, so we'll have about 6,400 square feet a little bit larger. So we're building the new building inside the old car shop?

Yeah, in the back where the parking is. There's going to be, we're going to use the front where the bookstore was, where it's existing. We are using that part that's already there, but we're going to expand just out the back of that into that parking area, so it'll all be one area.

[Speaker 8] (32:55 - 32:57)
What is the age of that building?

[Speaker 6] (32:58 - 32:59)
I don't, I'm not sure.

[Speaker 8] (33:00 - 33:02)
Is that a concern?

[Speaker 6] (33:02 - 33:03)
I mean, it's in good shape.

[Speaker 8] (33:04 - 33:08)
Are we going to be building into a building that's?

[Speaker 2] (33:09 - 33:12)
I think it's about 80 years old, at least 70 I think.

[Speaker 6] (33:13 - 33:22)
We remodeled one other part for the student athlete apartments and we had the bookstore there, but it's, and we've abated everything, all the asbestos has been abated now.

[Speaker 1] (33:23 - 33:34)
I don't think we have an established need set, but we're going to be guided by our facilities master plan and the feedback that we get from that based upon our instructional master plan as well, so.

[Speaker 8] (33:35 - 33:38)
But we wouldn't, we would not move cosmetology after we're invested?

[Speaker 1] (33:38 - 33:45)
We're not moving, yeah, we're not planning to move cosmetology anymore, not while the rest of us are here.

[Speaker 15] (33:46 - 33:54)
Are we planning to, do we anticipate increasing enrollment in that program?

[Speaker 1] (33:55 - 33:58)
I'm going to ask Dr. Walters to fill in on that, unless, yeah.

[Speaker 10] (34:01 - 34:19)
We are not planning to change the capacity of our cosmetology program, so the number of chairs that they have is almost the same, it's not exactly the same, but it's almost the same, the number of faculty will be the same, so the size of the program will remain the same.

[Speaker 1] (34:20 - 35:02)
It is our goal to keep it at that limit, but also to meet the demands, if it increases, as we do with any program that increases, but the shift in enrollment, too, is also based upon existing demand from our partners, so all dual credit in this area has been moved to the Liberty campus, and then we also, in serving Goose Creek, they have their own cosmetology program that's in-house, so we're not needing to serve them in that way, but also, well, I talked about the contract expansion, was there anything else, so we needed to separate dual credit from main campus enrollment?

[Speaker 10] (35:04 - 35:21)
That's correct, I mean, we're moving the main campus enrollment area, and dual credit is not affected in that, we've already done the renovation in Liberty for that. And of course, Lee High School has the cosmetology program for Goose Creek.

[Speaker 2] (35:26 - 36:08)
So, back to the building, will the new building have its own roof, or are we going to rely on the roof of that 70-year-old building for the, for rain, and it has, yeah, we're not doing any anything to the roof of the building, so. Will the new, the new 4,000 feet have its own secure roof, or would it be like, it's gonna be the whole parking garage roof, yes. It's gonna rely on the existing roof to protect it from the elements.

Yes, yeah, we're gonna infill, just infill underneath it. Do we have any environmental concerns with that being an auto repair shop for 50 years?

[Speaker 6] (36:09 - 36:19)
No, I don't think, there was one underground storage tank, but that was gone before, so there's nothing there, I don't think. We did a remodel for the bookstore, it would have taken care of anything like that.

[Speaker 2] (36:20 - 36:24)
So, the entrance to this facility will be where for the students?

[Speaker 6] (36:25 - 36:36)
The students can, there's gonna be two entrances, there's one on Texas Avenue, and there's one inside the overhang, in the garage entrance, so we can come in. The main entrance for people will be in the front on Texas Avenue.

[Speaker 2] (36:36 - 36:38)
Will that be through the apartments, the loft area?

[Speaker 6] (36:39 - 36:41)
No, no, it's got a separate entrance.

[Speaker 2] (36:41 - 36:43)
There's very little parking out there, I think.

[Speaker 6] (36:44 - 36:54)
Yeah, there'll still be some parking underneath, and then there's the parking right outside there, and if we have to in the future, we can look at that lot across Deefee Street.

[Speaker 2] (36:54 - 37:40)
It's a little unusual for us to put this much money in a facility that's surrounded by a 70 or 80 year old building. Did we look at a totally separate structure, maybe out in the parking lot of that huge complex? No, we didn't.

I mean, I would like to know how much more it would cost to have a complete new facility for these students. We normally, you know, nursing, different things, we provide a new facility, and this seems like we're kind of passionate together, to me, and spending three million dollars, or at least two and a half million, and it's not going to be, you know, as prestigious as we normally do a new facility, and I'm just concerned about that in this old building.

[Speaker 3] (37:40 - 37:43)
All of that was brought up in the building committee?

[Speaker 2] (37:43 - 37:44)
I wasn't there.

[Speaker 3] (37:45 - 37:54)
That's why I'm informing you. That was vetted during the building committee, and it was felt that this was the best option, which is why we recommended bringing it forward.

[Speaker 2] (37:55 - 38:04)
Do we know how much more it would cost to build a new facility, a complete facility with a new roof, so to speak? I do not know what that cost would be.

[Speaker 1] (38:05 - 38:07)
This is a renovation and not a new building.

[Speaker 2] (38:08 - 38:34)
No, that's not true, correct? We're building a new building inside this huge garage, right? Yeah, there'll be slab work and walls.

Yeah, we're tearing out the 80 year old slab and putting in a new slab under this 80 year old roof, then building new walls inside this old building. I mean, there's nothing, we're not really renovating.

[Speaker 1] (38:35 - 38:40)
I'm not the expert, but I thought a new building is a completely brand new building that didn't exist.

[Speaker 2] (38:41 - 38:42)
It does not have your roof on it.

[Speaker 1] (38:42 - 38:46)
The renovation still is working within the building.

[Speaker 6] (38:47 - 38:48)
I mean, there's a roof.

[Speaker 2] (38:48 - 39:15)
I have an 80 year old roof or a structure. It makes no sense. We have the money to do it right.

We can get the money to have a new facility. I don't understand why we're trying to cram it into the back of an 80 year old Cadillac dealership building that's shared by our apartment and our students, you know, when they live there 24 hours a day, you know, just right next door to it. It makes no sense to me, and I cannot support that.

Yes, sir?

[Speaker 8] (39:17 - 39:27)
Is there going to be interruption to the students when you're working on renovating or building? What kind of problem might be posed for the students?

[Speaker 6] (39:28 - 39:37)
Yeah, hopefully. I mean, it will be during the daytime, and we're going to try to get it done before, so it'll be over the summer, a lot of it, so there's not going to be much there, but yeah, some going on there.

[Speaker 10] (39:39 - 40:02)
So, the cosmetology program remains in TVA, and will remain there through the end of August, at which point this renovation is due to be complete. So, students will not be in the construction area, but they will have a current facility. Oh, the student athletes, I'm sorry.

[Speaker 1] (40:11 - 40:15)
We're gonna have to have public access for everyone that's over there, so.

[Speaker 6] (40:16 - 40:19)
Yes, there's two entrances in for the student athletes.

[Speaker 2] (40:20 - 40:35)
We're talking about a 4,000 square foot building, it sounded like, and we're spending two and a half million. It looks like we could do a little bit more and get a brand new facility with it's 6,400 square feet all to get 6,400 square feet all year with the renovation and the addition.

[Speaker 11] (40:36 - 40:46)
Chairman, so Regent Hensel, would you propose we buy property and build it there, or what, I mean?

[Speaker 2] (40:47 - 41:28)
We have property, we have a plenty of property on that site there to build a 6,000 foot building. I mean, there's a huge parking lot, and we just bought the corner, right, we're working on buying that entire corner there. So, if we wanted at that location, there's a lot of property.

We also have property across Deerfield or Sterling, whichever that is, and we have property on this campus. You know, we have the house property. So, that's not an issue, it's property.

I'm just concerned that we're spending almost three million, and we're not doing it first-class like we normally do for some of our students. We're putting it inside an 80-year-old building. I just want to make sure.

We like building it inside this building here, but we're doing, you know. The corner is not available.

[Speaker 1] (41:29 - 41:31)
I just wanted to make that clear. The corner is not available.

[Speaker 2] (41:31 - 41:32)
I'm sorry.

[Speaker 1] (41:32 - 41:45)
I'm sorry, the corner is not available, so that's not an option that we can make available. We do have a representative from SLEDGE who did guide us on some of this, correct? You want to please step up?

[Speaker 2] (41:49 - 41:53)
We didn't buy the corner, after all. We voted.

[Speaker 6] (42:01 - 42:04)
That's the corner, right?

[Speaker 2] (42:04 - 42:07)
Hot back coffee shop. That's the corner, right?

[Speaker 6] (42:08 - 42:16)
It's not, well, we got the permission to buy it. It's not a done deal yet. It hasn't been purchased.

We voted to buy it.

[Speaker 2] (42:16 - 42:20)
Yes, yes. Yeah, okay. So, we have a lot of property over there, a great deal of property.

[Speaker 1] (42:21 - 42:32)
Just to clarify, you authorized me to negotiate terms to buy the, to bring back to the board approval to buy the building. That's the only thing that's been done there.

[Speaker 2] (42:33 - 42:39)
Even without that, we have plenty of property, to answer your question, to build a 6,000 foot addition.

[Speaker 11] (42:39 - 42:42)
I don't know if you had something in mind that you would like to suggest.

[Speaker 2] (42:42 - 42:53)
No, I mean, that property is fine if that's where it needs to be, but that whole entire parking lot would be available for a building. Then we have across Sterling Street.

[Speaker 1] (42:55 - 43:01)
You may not have an answer for this since you're working with us on other projects, but if you did have any information.

[Speaker 9] (43:03 - 44:18)
Casey SLEDGE, SLEDGE Engineering. Keep me close enough, David. So, we weren't, our team wasn't involved in the selection of the original scope of the project, but we did get a chance to review the design and the bid process and the bid tab, and I think you're going to be pretty pleased with the design of the project and how it actually ends up.

Certainly, I think you'll be proud of that work. I don't think corners were cut. I think it was more an attempt to optimize the existing space that you have, and the cost of construction is absolutely continuing to escalate, really, all across the state and in your area as well.

If you were to do all new square footage, I would expect it to be more expensive. In your case, based on the size of the renovation, probably in 20 or 25 percent cost increase range or something like that. Not that that would be a poor choice, but of course you're already, you've already completed the design and of course a bid process with the projects you have, but I do think, I do think you got good competition, particularly for the scale and size of the project, and I think you've got a nice design that'll fit on your current space as well.

I think you'll be happy with it.

[Speaker 2] (44:19 - 44:34)
We haven't seen any of your drawings, but 25 percent of 2.5 million is a lot of money, but in order to get a 100% new building, that doesn't seem like a lot. We'll always be dealing with that old 80-year-old building.

[Speaker 1] (44:36 - 44:50)
Regarding the corner too, though, that's being used for parking, so I misspoken that, but that's being used for parking so we can't build there. Where? The corner that you were talking about, that corner lot, it's being used for parking, additional parking.

[Speaker 2] (44:51 - 45:29)
That building, that parking lot area is huge. There's probably what, an acre there probably? Yeah, I mean it's huge.

If we didn't have the money, I wouldn't argue about this at all, but I just don't like doing things not a hundred percent, you know, when we talk about students and the athletes that are gonna be there and sharing this one old building. You know, when it was built, it wasn't built to house people, it was built to repair cars, and so the structure was not built like this or other facilities that we have that we're gonna be housed inside. I just wish we had an option.

[Speaker 7] (45:33 - 46:09)
My understanding is, we're gonna be tearing up this lab, so the plumbing, all of those parts of the structure, what? All new electric. Is there any existing plumbing for all these chairs and things that go in there?

No, there's not, so I'll have to put that in. One concern, and I'm not, you know, just for spending money, but a question came up about the outside aesthetic of that building. Is there any way to address that?

[Speaker 6] (46:10 - 46:22)
We're putting new doors on and besides, you know, where the parking garage is, I think it'll look nice when we're done, but nothing, you know, major is being done for aesthetics.

[Speaker 7] (46:22 - 46:27)
The current design plans, are they done that address that issue? Was it part of the bid at all?

[Speaker 6] (46:27 - 46:31)
Yes, yeah, for the building and stuff, yeah, everything's in there, but.

[Speaker 2] (46:34 - 46:44)
Well, I think you could use some of those designs if you move the building straight out to the parking lot, you know, all the interior, just be adding roofs and things like that to it. It wouldn't be a big deal.

[Speaker 3] (46:48 - 47:48)
Okay, any further discussion? Okay, so on this one, we're going to do a show of hands. All in favor of approving the agenda item, raise your hand.

And all opposed? Okay, so the motion carries. One, two, three, four, five, six to one.

Thank you, John. Okay, next agenda item, consideration of approval of agreement with PBK Architects for college facilities master plan services. The administration recommends that the board authorize the president or her designee to negotiate final terms and enter into an agreement with PBK Architects for college facilities master plan professional services, not to exceed the amount of $450,000.

Do I have a motion on this item?

[Speaker 11] (47:49 - 47:49)
I'll move.

[Speaker 3] (47:50 - 48:28)
I have a motion by Regent Warford and a second by Regent Morfano. Do we have any discussion on this item? Hearing none, all in favor say aye.

Any opposed? And do we have executive session? Okay, matters of concern for future agendas.

[Speaker 8] (48:30 - 48:42)
It's not a concern, but I had, Dr. V, we had talked about at graduation to find out what percentage of our students were first generation graduates, so maybe we can get that at some point.

[Speaker 1] (48:42 - 48:44)
You wanted graduates or?

[Speaker 3] (48:44 - 48:45)
First generation.

[Speaker 1] (48:45 - 48:47)
Right, first generation that graduated?

[Speaker 8] (48:47 - 48:52)
They graduated and they were first generation. I'm just curious as to how many that we had walk across the stage.

[Speaker 1] (48:52 - 49:10)
Lucky we have an expert right here that can pull up that for us. Is Dr. Bennett still here? Or maybe, yes?

No, I know, but do you, I think because we did pose the question. He has data in his head as well as Dr. Walsh.

[Speaker 8] (49:10 - 49:12)
I won't know if you're right or wrong, so go for it.

[Speaker 13] (49:12 - 49:33)
So, no, I thank you for the question. I certainly don't want to make up any information and share that with you. So, first generation status, we gather that information on the application.

If the student provides it as well as our financial aid applications, which not all of our students apply for financial aid, but I hear the question and we'll be sure to have a good answer for you at the next board meeting.

[Speaker 8] (49:33 - 49:52)
Just a lot of them with their sashes, it said first generation, and it was just really kind of neat to see all these students coming through, making changes for their lives and the pride of their families to know that they had a graduate and just the legacy that they are starting to leave, and I just thought it would be fun to know that number.

[Speaker 13] (49:52 - 49:53)
Yes, absolutely.

[Speaker 1] (49:53 - 50:34)
We do have a related number, but it is based on a small end for spring, but our increase in first time students, first time in college students is 13% this spring? Is it 11? Wait, I'm sorry, 47% increase?

There you go. But again, I didn't include it because it is a smaller end than we would see in fall registration. So, there, Dr. Bennett, right?

Okay. But a 47% increase for this spring in registration of first time in college students, which still is amazing. Thank you, Dr. Bennett.

[Speaker 2] (50:34 - 50:46)
I'd ask about last month, and that was the elevator in this building, and I thought it was going to be fixed, but maybe I misunderstood. Do we have an update on that? Well, or you can get it to us later.

[Speaker 6] (50:47 - 51:05)
It should be up tomorrow morning. I talked with the mechanic today. They had a packing problem.

They had to reorder the packing. That's what held it up. It's in.

He just didn't have enough oil to fill it today. You've got to be kidding me. Close.

Yeah, but it should be. He said he's coming out tomorrow with the oil. It's supposed to be running.

[Speaker 2] (51:07 - 51:32)
Thank you, sir. And my second, I may have asked this in the wrong meeting earlier, but I just would like to get an understanding of how we're going to go forward with the City of Baytown, the agreement we agreed on earlier about how this board is going to work together as a whole going forward to understand and be able to come to agreement on what and how we want to do on this new venture.

[Speaker 3] (51:34 - 51:51)
So all details like that are being worked out. What I can report to you is look very soon for a calendar invite because we are arranging a joint dinner between the City of Baytown Council and us, so it's all in the works.

[Speaker 2] (51:51 - 52:09)
And I don't necessarily, again, meet with them. I'm concerned. My question is about our board and us meeting as an entire board to go forward with this versus a small group.

That's all I'm asking. Our group. Nothing to do with the city.

[Speaker 1] (52:09 - 52:20)
It's been noted in matters of future agenda, and we'll certainly make sure that we meet the needs of the board for communication purposes and exploration as we move down for the feasibility study.

[Speaker 11] (52:24 - 52:25)
I have a question.

[Speaker 1] (52:26 - 52:26)
Yes.

[Speaker 11] (52:26 - 52:29)
The spirit shop. Heard you say that earlier.

[Speaker 1] (52:29 - 52:29)
I did.

[Speaker 11] (52:30 - 52:33)
Is that online? Is that in the bookstore?

[Speaker 1] (52:33 - 52:53)
Brian, do you want to talk about it? It's both online, the spirit shop, as well as a face-to-face pop-up shop that we can go around and one that's stationary in Molar. Is that true, all three?

Is that, okay, but that's in the planning or no?

[Speaker 12] (52:55 - 53:01)
Please come up to the microphone. I'm going to be so glad when we're in Tucker again next month.

[Speaker 14] (53:05 - 53:22)
No pop-up shops, but that's something that Michelle could look into. But we do have a pretty sizable store in Molar Hall. Navigator Nation is the name of it.

And you can buy merchandise online as well.

[Speaker 1] (53:23 - 53:26)
Do you want that link sent out to the board? Okay.

[Speaker 8] (53:26 - 53:43)
Is the online shop much more extensive than, like, is there a wider range of variety of items or is it pretty much the same as you have on campus? I don't think we know the answer to that. I know Goose Creek has their shop online and it's loaded with tons of different options.

[Speaker 14] (53:43 - 53:48)
That's not in my area, so I'm just guessing, but I would say there might be one or two more things online.

[Speaker 1] (53:48 - 54:12)
Sorry for throwing you under the bus on that, but I keep associating you with the spirit shop. So my understanding is that we have two options, one online and one face-to-face in Molar. And I'll send you the link or I'll ask David to send the link for the spirit shop online.

And my guess is that it has more items than the face-to-face storefront.

[Speaker 14] (54:13 - 54:14)
Probably definitely more sizes.

[Speaker 1] (54:15 - 54:21)
And we're always looking at incorporating and adding more, so still new, but we're growing.

[Speaker 11] (54:22 - 54:23)
Awesome. Thank you so much.

[Speaker 1] (54:23 - 54:26)
We're planning to add that scarf. That's growth.

[Speaker 3] (54:29 - 54:31)
And if there's nothing else.

[Speaker 4] (54:33 - 54:37)
We're going to start selling the products at the games.

[Speaker 1] (54:39 - 54:42)
Thank you, Renee, and thank you for correcting the area of supervision.

[Speaker 3] (54:42 - 54:45)
That probably qualifies as a pop-up shop.

[Speaker 1] (54:45 - 54:49)
Yes. Well, that would be a pop-up shop then. Thank you.

[Speaker 3] (54:51 - 54:54)
Okay. If there's nothing else, meeting adjourned.