Administrators at Texas Tech are putting the final touches on a brick-and-mortar wish list they plan to present to the university’s governing board this week, plus a few other odds and ends like new degree programs to soft-drink contracts.
Among the building proposals awaiting Tech’s Board of Regents on Thursday and Friday is an overhaul of Tech’s baseball stadium, a major lab upgrade within its petroleum engineering school and a breakneck remodeling of a university building to accommodate departments uprooted by the construction of a new residence hall.
In other words, Tech officials want to shuffle and improve a swath of facilities, but first they need regents’ green light.
The board is also slated to hear from Michael Molina, Tech’s vice chancellor for facilities, about a report he must soon submit to the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board about the building master plans for each of the Tech system’s three schools.
The report, due by the end of June, includes all of Tech’s plans for the next five years, including new buildings, major renovations and property acquisitions.
Tech’s contract with Coca-Cola is also up for board review on the two-day agenda. The university’s original beverage contract with company dates back to 1996, with an extension signed in 2002 that expires at the end of August.
The new contract, if approved after a closed-door meeting (allowed under open-meetings laws as a sensitive contract negotiation), would extend Tech’s partnership with Coke as its campus beverage provider through 2021.
Tech Chancellor Kent Hance is also scheduled to update the board on the system’s operating budgets, a report that is likely to include updates on a budget crunch in Austin.
Lawmakers in both legislative chambers are flirting with massive higher education cuts across the state that could cost the Tech system as much as $100 million or more.
Regents are not scheduled to set a final tuition for the fall, although they have already capped any potential increase at 5.9 percent.
Final decision on tuition should come later this summer after the Legislature and Gov. Rick Perry sign a final state budget.
The meeting is scheduled to begin at 9 a.m. Thursday in the Student Union Building, 15th Street and Akron Avenue.
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