SVSU students and faculty can expect major changes in the fall as a result of the most Board of Control meeting.

Agenda topics included faculty promotions, salary increases and tuition.

Sixteen promotions were approved at the meeting. Three were promoted to the level of professor, 11 were promoted to the level of associate professor and two were promoted to the level of assistant professor.

To be promoted, faculty members go through a review process with recommendations sent to Robert Lane, the Faculty Association president and political science professor.

Lane’s recommendations are then sent to President Eric Gilbertson and the Professional Practice Committee before being voted on by the Board of Control.

Salary increases for faculty were also on the agenda. Faculty will receive a 1.5 percent increase this year with a 2.5 percent increase each year for two years after that.

The contract between the University and the Faculty Association was also renewed to last until 2014.

The board agreed on and unanimously passed a tuition increase of 6.9 percent. Gilbertson said that an increase was necessary to provide students with a quality experience at SVSU (For more information on the tuition increase, see “Tuition on rise” above”).

“I wish tuition were zero, but to provide students with what they want and need is impossible without it,” he said.

Ted Goodman, Student Association (SA) president, said that students are aware of the challenges that come with the tough economy and that SA will work with the university “to ensure…students are getting a value for their money.”

With the state budget cutting 15 percent of its funding to higher education institutions, universities around Michigan are raising the price of attending college. Gilbertson said that SVSU will still have the lowest tuition rate in the state.