The Arizona Board of Regents (ABOR) will meet at NAU’s High Country Conference Center Thursday and Friday to discuss the financial future of Arizona’s public university system.

ABOR meets three times during a full school year, with each of the three major universities hosting one of those meetings. The board hears and votes on resolutions including budget planning, capital projects, human resources and academic affairs.

Lisa Nelson, NAU public relations director, said it is important for NAU to have the opportunity to host these meetings.

“It’s important to have the regents, who govern the university system, visit and experience each university campus,” Nelson said. “It’s also important to offer our campus and community constituents the opportunity to attend ABOR meetings to better understand the issues being addressed and also to participate.”

Andrea Smiley, an ABOR spokeswoman, said structure and budget are two of the main concerns during this meeting.

“The items I think will be discussed the most are the architecture proposal for the university system … and the operating budget request for [fiscal year] 2011,” Smiley said. “The requests show what the universities think they will need as far as state funding.”

The universities’ proposals for a revised university system architecture have the goals of increasing the number of baccalaureate degrees by 50 percent by 2020. To do this, the universities are partnering with community colleges so students can be more financially and conveniently able to gain those degrees.

Nelson said NAU is well on its way to fulfilling the mission of the proposal.

“The university is now looking at developing regional universities from its branch campus at NAU-Yuma and the brand-new campus at NAU-Yavapai,” Nelson said, “which started this fall and will be offering focused four-year degree programs.”

The capital project proposal for NAU, if approved, will run from 2011 to 2013. The main feature of the plan includes a new private residence hall to be built on south-central campus. The hall will have apartment-style rooms and will house 560 upperclassmen. It will be entirely funded through private financing.

“The university is experiencing unprecedented enrollment growth,” Nelson said. “Fall 2009 marks the third year of record-breaking enrollment. The demand for non-traditional style residential housing exceeds current inventory.”

Smiley said the economic crisis hitting Arizona will have an impact on the discussion throughout the meeting, especially with regard to the budget. The universities are facing total cuts of more than $230 million in state funding in 2009 and 2010. To offset a large portion of these cuts, the state government awarded the university system with federal stimulus money. But Smiley said the benefits of the funding are only short term as they are one-time moneys that cannot be renewed.

“All three of the universities are submitting critical issue funding requests for necessary funds when the stimulus money runs out,” Smiley said. “Despite the state’s economic environment, our universities are seeing record enrollment and we need to be able to fund that.”

ABOR President Ernest Calderon said the economic times might inhibit the abilities of the universities to get additional funding approved, but they must adapt regardless.

“With the economic climate being what it is, we have to move on and get done what we can,” Calderon said. “We’re going to have to work with what we have.”

Calderon said ABOR is going to have to work harder to make up for the cuts in funding.

“It puts a tremendous burden on us,” Calderon said. “The governor is asking us to make a 15 percent cut in our overall budget [for 2010], which is going to be almost impossible. We’re cut down to the bone already.”

The meeting will be open to the public. A full agenda can be seen at http://www.abor.asu.edu/1_the_regents/meetings/agenda/agenda.html.