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Trustees appoint Burnham, approve renovations

February 11, 2011

The MSU Board of Trustees appointed Mark Burnham as the new vice president of governmental affairs at its Friday meeting, confirming a position that will be increasingly important as Gov. Rick Snyder prepares to deliver his state budget proposal next week.

Burnham is taking over the role from Steve Webster, who has taken a job as the CEO and chairman of the Prima Civitas Foundation — a nonprofit, statewide economic development organization. Webster will continue to spend some of his time working for MSU for the next few months on state relations and economic development issues, Burnham said.

Burnham said his first priority will be analyzing the budget proposal to determine its impacts on the university and submit the a response to the legislature.

“There’s anticipation that there’s going to be very significant cuts, not just to higher education — but throughout the entire state budget,” Burnham said. “We’re all trying to lower the impact on us and so is everybody else.”

MSU President Lou Anna K. Simon said the state budget is expected to be conservative during the first year of Snyder’s tenure, so money can be positively spent going into his second and third year.

MSU’s Shaping the Future plan is in place to help MSU balance any necessary budget cuts with a continued focus on the future, she said. There are currently plans in place for an additional 3 percent budget reduction, Simon said.

“Hopefully we will not need them because I also believe that everything you hear from downtown is (that) talent, talent development, innovation and research are the key to our future — and that’s us,” she said during the meeting.

The board also approved a memo to move forward with plans to renovate the auditorium in the College of Music, including adding additional seating and enhancing the acoustics and lighting. According to the Board of Trustee’s agenda, the cost of renovations would be about $2.5 million.

James Forger, dean of the College of Music, said the auditorium serves as the central hub of the college for students and faculty, but it has no air conditioning and lacks sound isolation.

“You often will have a concert accompanied by motorcycle or dumpster trash removal,” he said.

A bid contract was also awarded for the remodeling of Bailey and Rather halls for $24.9 million to Clark Construction Company. The budget for the entire project has been reduced from $35 million to $33.5 million.

In December 2010, the board decided to add Rather Hall to the project because of a favorable construction climate, but the bids did not come in as low as the board hoped, said Fred Poston, vice president of finance and operations.

“The bid of this … although we were lower than our estimate, it’s still higher than I would have guessed,” Poston said. “But we had a reasonable number of bids.”

Trustee Brian Breslin said he still thinks it is fiscally responsible to move forward with renovations to both halls.

“I think it’s absolutely important that the university not allow its facilities, which serve its students, to fall behind and enter into disrepair,” he said.

The board also approved plans to proceed to replace a deteriorated steam tunnel to Spartan Stadium for a budget of $3.6 million. Construction will begin in March instead of at the end of the semester, so the project can be completed before the U2 concert scheduled at the stadium in late June, said university engineer Bob Nestle.

During the meeting, Doug Buhler was also approved as the interim dean for the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources at the meeting, as was a proposal to merge the Department of French, Classics and Italian and the Department of Spanish and Portuguese into the Department of Romance and Classical Studies.

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