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February 2024 Board Updates

Board of trustees conducts full slate of business at winter meeting

The Roanoke College Board of Trustees has approved a mutually beneficial proposal that will allow the city of Salem to construct a portion of its greenway on the Elizabeth Campus. 

The agreement was a highlight of the winter board meeting, which took place Feb. 8-9, 2024. The meeting also included a strategic planning brainstorming session, a board visioning exercise, and the approval of resolutions on renaming the Life Science building and adjusting the faculty teaching load.

The Elizabeth Campus greenway section will be an extension of the Salem Greenway, which is part of a larger, multi-jurisdictional project to build a walking and cycling trail through the Roanoke Valley. The extension will be constructed at the city’s expense, and it will take advantage of an existing pathway the College constructed to access its Environment Center and Renewal Meadow.

Trustees view the greenway extension as a win-win from several angles. Roanoke College leaders believe strongly in partnering with Salem on civic projects, and the greenway will be an exciting installment in that longtime partnership. The extension will enhance the Elizabeth Campus and offer the college community safer, more convenient pedestrian access to Salem amenities, including the Civic Center and Salem Stadium, where the new Roanoke College football team will play. 

The board also approved a resolution of appreciation for Linda and John Snyder ’64 in recognition of their $5 million gift to the Science Center project. The Snyders have chosen to honor and memorialize a dear friend, Professor Robert “Bob” Jenkins ’61, by renaming the College’s Life Science Building the Robert Jenkins ’61 Life Science Hall.

The Snyders have been inspired to support Roanoke College because of John’s fond college memories and a belief in the importance of quality science education. They chose to honor and memorialize Jenkins, a biology professor emeritus who died last year, because he was a treasured friend and classmate of John Snyder – and because of the incredible legacy he leaves at Roanoke, where he taught biology for 37 years and mentored more than 40 student assistants.   

The Life Science building is slated for renovation as part of Roanoke’s Science Center project, which will replace Massengill Hall with a state-of-the-art new science education facility and improve both Trexler and Life Science. 

Also at the winter meeting, the board voted to approve a resolution in support of an increased teaching responsibility for faculty. The change would increase the faculty teaching load from six courses per year (three per semester) to eight courses per year (four per semester), allowing the College to realize instructional cost savings that will help offset a deficit brought on by economic headwinds and enrollment challenges.

An analysis by Gray Decision Intelligence in 2022 revealed that Roanoke’s instructional costs were $4 million higher than similar institutions. Adjusting the teaching load is designed to stave off the kind of drastic actions taken by other institutions, such as salary cuts, elimination of academic programs, or room and board increases.

In anticipation of this change, a faculty working group spent the fall term exploring opportunities for reallocating other faculty work to account for the increase in teaching responsibilities. In consultation with faculty, the board and administration have agreed to review faculty workload at a minimum of every five years, based on established metrics, to ensure it aligns with the College’s mission, vision, goals and fiscal health.  

As a result of action taken during the fall 2023 board meeting, two new faculty representatives were invited to attend and participate in the winter board meeting. The board approved the plan last year to enhance faculty representation and communication with the board in the spirit of shared governance. Associate Professor Chris Buchholz and Assistant Professor Jonathan McCloud participated in the winter meeting as non-voting members. They joined the faculty moderator, who is always part of the board proceedings. The current moderator is Professor Ivonne Wallace Fuentes.

The board also approved tenure and promotion to associate professor for Nelson Barre and Mary C. Hill (posthumous), and approved promotion to professor for Shannon Anderson, William “Skip” Brenzovich Jr., Michelle Hagadorn, Meeta Mehrotra, Andreea Mihalache-O’Keefe and Hannah Robbins.

Roanoke’s new Student Government Association (SGA) president, Josh Masten ’25, attended the meeting for introductions and to deliver his first SGA report. He briefed the board on the student body’s interest in sustainability at Roanoke. “Students believe this place is their home, and they want to make their home better,” he said. 

The board unanimously voted to appoint seven of its members for additional four-year terms, including Kirk Betts, Ken Belton, Jim Frantz, Judy Hall, Tyler Pugh and Helen Whittemore. Trustees also extended Belton’s term as chair of the board’s Community, Diversity and Inclusion Committee. The board expressed appreciation for Trustee Danae Psilopoulos Foley ’92, who decided to step down to pursue other projects.   

The winter meeting also included two plenary sessions facilitated by representatives of Credo, a higher education consulting firm that handles strategy and student success. One of those sessions focused on strategic planning, as the College has just launched an initiative to create a bold new strategic plan. The other session focused on the future of the board, with members brainstorming and discussing the board’s future makeup and priorities.

On Wednesday evening, prior to the Thursday board meeting, trustees, faculty, staff and students gathered for “Rooted and Open: A Community Conversation on Lutheran Education’s Common Calling.” The panel discussion, facilitated by the Rev. Kelly Shushok, featured the Rev. Harry Griffith, a member of the board of trustees; Jennifer Berenson, professor of religion and chair of the Religion and Philosophy Department; Ned Wisnefske, professor of religion; and Roanoke College Chaplain Chris Bowen. The event was followed by a social hour for board members, faculty and staff. 

In the president’s report to the board, Frank Shushok Jr. reflected on his first 18 months in office by celebrating the projects shepherded by his leadership and carried out by the many dedicated members of the Roanoke College community. Highlights from that list are as follows:

  • We’ve completed the accreditation process to offer master’s degrees, launched an MBA program and just approved a new Master of Education.
  • We've added football, marching band and competitive cheer, raising $1.3 million for that effort. Students have already transferred to Roanoke to play football, and more than 20 have committed for the program. More than 100 students have visited campus to learn more.
  • Great things are happening in the Business Department. We have just approved new majors in marketing, finance and economics-finance. Our Personal Finance Planning Track is now a Certified Financial Planner (CFP) Board Registered Program, making us only the fifth school in Virginia that helps students complete the coursework that qualifies them to sit for the CFP exam.
  • New partnerships with Virginia Tech, Virginia Western and William & Mary expand access to Roanoke College and make it easier for students to seek undergraduate and/or graduate degrees in their chosen field.
  • We redesigned and created a phased approach to the Science Center project, which is breaking ground this summer.
  • Our amazing faculty have designed innovative new majors to meet student and industry demand: screen studies, human services, disability studies and cannabis studies
  • We identified four transdisciplinary schools that are in development.
  • We created a Student Success Division and integrated a campus-wide student success platform called Navigate.
  • We secured a $200,000 state planning grant to create a lab school with Salem High School, and we just submitted a $6.3 million companion grant application.
  • We’re launching women’s golf.
  • We fielded our first competitive cycling team and recruited an Olympian to coach it.
  • We’ve rebranded and unveiled a new website, debuted a branded food truck, and are about to launch a redesigned alumni magazine.
  • At P.L.A.C.E, we launched an alumni-student connection platform called Meet a Maroon, hosted a Future of Work program in partnership with Deloitte, and joined the Council of Independent Colleges’ Work-Based Learning Consortium to expand student access to experiential opportunities.
  • We were invited to join the Annapolis Group and the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Schools.
  • We integrated the CliftonStrengths program across campus.
  • We’ve launched a strategic planning process and shared governance task force.
  • We expanded the reach of the transformational Inside-Out Program, which brings students and inmates together for course credit, into Roanoke City.
  • We launched Maple’s Kids/Toy Like Me to bring students and community members together around adaptive sports.

The board will convene again on April 18-19, 2024, for its annual spring meeting.