“We can’t succeed without an outstanding team around us,” said Ball State’s College of Fine Arts Dean, Seth Beckman, referring to his team of colleagues helping to expand the university’s Theatre and Dance programs.
Beckman’s sentiment was echoed throughout Ball State’s Feb. 28 Board of Trustees Committee Meeting by various staff and faculty members who approached the board with consistently positive departmental updates halfway through the Spring 2025 semester.
Finance, Facilities and Planning Committee
James Buss, dean of Ball State’s Honors College and director of the Virginia Ball Center for Creative Inquiry opened the meeting with a proposal to the board to name a new wing of the Honors House after Charles J. Berthy and Erika A. Berthy, the parents of donors Rich and Linda Berthy, whose daughter April graduated from the college in 2023.
Buss said the Berthy's have been routinely loyal to the university, funding three different scholarships that have aided a total of nine students of the university's students.
The new wing, as Buss proposed, would include a grand hallway and corridor, ultimately offering residents of the honor’s house, bigger communal spaces to gather.
In keeping with naming proposals, Jeff Mitchell, Ball State’s director of athletics brought forth a proposal to name the university’s baseball stadium Shebeck Stadium, after donors Mike and Katie Shebeck.
Mike was a Ball State alumnus who was a part of the baseball team when the program was “on the rise,” Mitchell said.
Mitchell gave a timeline for the undertaking, clarifying the goal for construction is to break ground in the Fall of 2025, with a target completion date of Summer 2026. Careful of potential inequities, Michell clarified a softball field was also in discussion.
As far as finances were concerned, Scott Stachler, interim vice president for business affairs and interim treasurer had “only good news to report.” Highlighting the university’s “stable enrollment [and] prudent financial management,” via upward revenues and two-million dollar contingency, Stachler said he is “pleased with progress we’ve made” and looks forward to the development of a state budget in April.
The board also granted Chris Palladino, Ball State’s director of real estate services and real estate
development program, authorization to sell Real estate associated with The Village, near Ball State’s campus. The sale is an advancement to the university’s greater initiative to revitalize The Village through 25 owner-occupied single-family homes to be built in 2025 and finish construction in 2027.
Audit and Compliance Committee
Since joining the university staff in April 2023, Chifundo Biliwita, director of internal audit and advisory services, said he has worked to “increase university productivity” and reported strong graduation management through prior agreed-upon policies.
“There's no action that we're going to take moving forward other than just retraining and making sure that you know future financial reports we take [and the] due diligence and making sure that those categories are in alignment with what the policies agreed upon, " Biliwita said.
No further updates were reported.
Employee Development and Wellbeing Committee
The board was made aware of seven university retirees with a combined 248 years of service to Ball State and its surrounding community, including Thomas “Tom” Harris, associate professor of information systems and operations management, and Dr. Kemuel “Kem” Badger, associate professor of biology, who were both in attendance.
President Mearns gave a presentation to the board on behalf of Liebling, Ball State’s interim associate vice president for people and culture, with updates pertaining to the university’s human resources work plan regarding the ongoing implementation of WorkDay, a platform that unites HR and finance on one AI platform to help elevate humans and supercharge work to keep business moving forever forward,” according to the platform’s website.
Mearns described “the many future benefits, tactical benefits from this implementation project,” including the centralization and automation of a wide range of tasks that are more manual than technological: determining compensation rates, how to facilitate annual performance evaluations.
“It will reduce all of the time that's being spent on the administrative tasks,” adding that such is important because, “that will then enable us to retain the outstanding people that we attract to the university.”
Mearns explained the importance of the platform as technology continues to advance.
“While this sounds like a new technology, it's not simply a technology upgrade,” he summarized. “It's a strategic investment [that] enables us to support our outstanding faculty and staff even better.”
It is anticipated that the platform to be integrated into university activities by the end of this academic year.
On the note of the Department of People and Culture, Mearns announced the launch of the search for the university’s new vice president of people and culture, chaired by Ball State’s Chief Strategy Officer, Charlene Alexander.
Academic and Student Affairs Committee
Ball State’s Vice Provost for Student Success and Dean of University College, Jason Rivera, gave an update to the board regarding the success of a few student retention initiatives, including its recently launched student success coaching program.
Rivera said he is looking for ways that students can easily make use of the Navigate app through the university, including broadening communication between students and their support systems to extend via text messages as opposed to only email notifications, noting that students don’t routinely check email.
Rivera also reported that the student retention rate is up .6% from this time last year.
A provost report from Anand Marri detailed the advancement of the 15-week academic calendar in the Fall of 2026 instead of the current 16-week calendar and the College of Communication, Information and Media Dean search committee finalists are to arrive on campus March 13.
All resolutions were approved. The next Board of Trustees meeting will be held May 2 at 9 a.m. in the university’s L.A. Pittenger Student Center Cardinal Hall A.
Contact Katherine Hill via email at katherine.hill@bsu.edu.
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