The IU Board of Trustees, IU’s governing board, legal owner and final authority, met Thursday at IU-Southeast in New Albany, Ind., for the Academic Affairs and University Policies Committee meeting and University Relations Committee ?meeting.
The board will convene again Friday for the Finance, Audit and Strategic Planning Committee meeting and Facilities and Auxiliaries Committee meeting.
The board approved all personnel items, including the appointment of James Shanahan, professor and associate dean of Boston University’s College of Communication, as the founding dean of IU’s Media School.
The board also approved the appointment of Sue Carter to Rudy Professor of Biology and director of the Kinsey Institute in Sex, Gender and Reproduction as well as the appointment of Hui-Chen Lu to professor and Gill Chair of Psychological and Brain Sciences.
Eugene Temple, IU Foundation president emeritus, updated the board on the Lilly Family School of Philanthropy.
The school, located at IU-Purdue University Indianapolis, is the first and only school of philanthropy in the world.
“(The Lilly Family School of Philanthropy) is ahead of all metrics proposed in its original plan,” said Patrick Shoulders, chair of Academic Affairs and University Policies Committee. “Its endowment and endowed chairs are amazing for its size and it has just added four new world-class faculty.”
The only concern, Shoulders said, is the number of undergraduates. The goal is to increase the number of undergraduates from 64 to 200.
“Although even that number is ahead of projections,” Shoulders said.
John Applegate , IU executive vice president for university academic affairs; Lauren Robel , IU executive vice president and IU-Bloomington provost; Jay Hess, IU School of Medicine Dean; and Nasser Paydar, IU-Purdue University Indianapolis executive vice chancellor, also updated the board on university rankings.
“We seem to embrace rankings when they favor us and discount them when they don’t,” Shoulders said. “There is some concern about slippage in U.S. News rankings, but many bright spots (in other rankings) as well.”
In 2014, in a United States News and World Report ranking of national universities, IU-Bloomington ranked 76th.
“All deans and leaders have been challenged to review and learn any helpful takeaways from the various rankings, but we cannot let them guide strategic planning,” Shoulders said.
For the full agenda, visit trustees.iu.edu .
