[Speaker 1] (0:01 - 0:25)
Good evening. I now call this meeting of the Lee College Board of Regents on February 19, 2026 at 6 p.m. to order. We do have a quorum.

We have eight present, and one is joining us via Israel. So thank you for joining us at whatever time it is, 2 o'clock or so in the morning. I don't know what it is.

[Speaker 9] (0:25 - 0:26)
Two in the morning.

[Speaker 1] (0:27 - 0:38)
All right. Yeah, so okay, we do have a quorum. So we're going to move on to our invocation of pledge provided by Regent Gina Guillory.

[Speaker 14] (1:12 - 1:38)
I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

[Speaker 1] (1:38 - 1:52)
Thank you very much. All right, next we're going to move to student spotlight. We have Audrey Vermillion D'Access Center.

Any introduction or turn you on?

[Speaker 4] (1:54 - 1:57)
Jose, are you doing the introductions? Okay, wonderful. Welcome.

[Speaker 8] (2:05 - 3:46)
Thank you. So my name is Jose Martinez. I'm the Director of Student Conduct and Compliance for the college and Title IX coordinator, and I have the pleasure to supervise the access center.

And so today I would like to introduce you to one of our students, Audrey Vermillion and her service dog in training, Winston Naples Churchill. Audrey is an honor student pursuing a career in healthcare and preparing for medical school. She is currently a full-time trainee with Lone Star LEND, a training program designed to develop leaders in the field of autism spectrum disorder and other neurodevelopmental disabilities.

As a student served by the access center, Audrey brings a personal understanding of accommodations and accessibility that informs her work. Her lived experiences have shaped a deep commitment to accessibility, accommodations, and mental health informed care. Known for going above and beyond, Audrey has independently free formatted full of lecture notes and improved accessibility for future students and support of her professors.

In a recommendation letter from Dr. Javier Ramirez from her very first semester in which Audrey asked me to read an expert, it captured the spirit well. And I'll go ahead and read that excerpt now. Audrey entered human condition two with some hesitancy.

She expressed early in the semester that she wouldn't be able to keep up with the fast-paced rigorous nature of the class. Her concerns were valid. Audrey struggled.

The course meets once a week for three hours. Students would also read various works and complete lengthy writing assignments each week. But Audrey never gave up.

However, her commitment is better demonstrated than the fact that she would read the works in advance and draft her work early, all so she could get the feedback. Her drive, her determination, and persistence evidence just how truly exceptional Audrey is as a student. So I'd like to introduce Audrey.

[Speaker 3] (3:48 - 10:45)
Hello and thank you all. Thank you all so much for the opportunity to speak here. I take it as a great honor.

I'd like to get some board member participation. A show of hands, how many of y'all use glasses or contacts? Well, congratulations.

You're all disabled and using disability aids. And so we'll get into that a little bit more in a minute. But I wanted to explain how I ended up here as a student.

I grew up in a cult and there's actually a documentary about the cult. And so with that, I was not, you know, college, career. A woman's purpose was home providing, making babies and keeping the house.

That was it. And so I had wanted to pursue a career, but that was shut down quite often and homeschooled. But with having a chronically ill mother, homeschooling ended up being rather lacking.

I completed high school algebra. I had one year of spelling, one semester of grammar, and read one science textbook was my full education through high school. And I read quite extensively, but obviously felt quite lacking.

I was allowed to go to a school that was started by the cult and got a degree in biblical ministry. And that kind of started my deconstruction. And honestly, I think it kind of backfired for the cult because they were very much in here, you read the Bible and go see what it says for yourself.

Like, we're not going to tell you what to believe. You go figure out what to believe. And so that kind of just started the journey of being able to look at something and go, wait, is the belief I have right?

Is this the belief I want to continue to have, or do I want to change my belief in this? And so then getting married to my husband in 2020, continued that. And then when the cult documentary came out, that really just kind of put things into hyperdrive of really going, okay, this, like, I knew things weren't quite right growing up, but I didn't realize how bad they were until I had someone say, yeah, here's everything.

Because I had a clinically diagnosed PTSD and had forgotten quite a lot of my growing up and just the cult beliefs and everything. And so after we had planned on having a family after realizing that was not going to be an option for us, then became, what do I want to do? Do I want to have a career?

Do I want to sit around at the house and do nothing? Like what? And so just started kind of exploring that and having multiple chronic illnesses in part due to the abuse that I endured growing up and being a professional patient, so to speak.

I've been very familiar with the medical system and the many lacking areas that are in our medical system as it is. And I had had people telling me for years, like, you should go in the medical field, like you would be fabulous. You would be great.

This would be awesome. And I was like, but I've seen it and it's a hot mess and no thank you. And then after talking with a friend who also had chronic illness and had decided to go into the medical field, because as she put, I have that lived experience and there's been, there were days that would have been incredibly traumatic, but there was one person that came and held my hand and talked me through it and made the difference and realizing I wanted to do that because I've had that experience also. And so began the quest for medical school and just even, can I even do this?

And talking with different of my doctors and stuff and going, okay, is this, is this a completely dumb idea? Am I going to kill myself trying to do this? And I had one of, one of them in particular tell me, no, you're going to be fabulous.

They're exactly what they're looking for. I'm going to hold your hand and write you every single letter that you need. And he has, he's been incredibly supportive.

And so with coming to Lee, feeling incredibly unprepared and like, I didn't know enough to be going to college and having been told, no, you can't go to college. It was terrifying. I was having panic attacks, trying to get the pre-testing to see what classes, but we did it.

And then my, my first semester with, with Dr. Ward and Dr. Ramirez and Ms. Hernandez, having their support and then going above and beyond what my accommodations were and like, like looking at the accommodation letter and going, okay, yes, this, this is what she needs and we're going to support this and, and give a little extra and not just, well, the letter says this. And so this is all you get. And so like, for example, last week I had eight appointments on top and, you know, with a full, full-time LEND and class, and then we also had an exam on Monday.

And so like part of my accommodations is flexibility with exam dates. And so just having a little bit of flexibility, being able to take that a little later than the rest of the class to allow time for studying because of my schedule, like I wouldn't be able to do class without it. And just like the ability to sit when doing presentations and have snacks.

And there's, I had planned, planned on having a letter or a sample of what accommodations can look like, but I was sick and didn't get it in time. So I think that will be provided to you as an addendum, but just kind of to get, give an idea of what accommodations can look like and realize that accommodations are not giving students an unfair advantage, just like glasses. They just help level the playing field and make it so that disabled students aren't working 10 times harder than their peers.

So thank you.

[Speaker 16] (10:53 - 13:02)
Are there any questions? Questions? Okay.

Very inspirational. Thank you.

[Speaker 1] (13:05 - 13:12)
Right. Next item on the agenda is a special report from the Community College National Legislative Summit.

[Speaker 4] (13:13 - 13:19)
I'd like to ask Ms. Kelly Ford Spears, Vice President of Student Affairs, to introduce our special speakers.

[Speaker 15] (13:22 - 13:42)
Good evening. It's my pleasure to welcome Joey Belchan and Jeremiah Miller, who had the pleasure of traveling with some of you to Washington, DC a week ago or so for the National Legislative Summit. So I know it was a wonderful experience for them and they represented our students so well.

So Jeremiah, Joey, come on up.

[Speaker 5] (13:55 - 14:00)
Hello, I'm Joey and I'm the SGA Vice President here at Lee College.

[Speaker 10] (14:01 - 14:04)
How's it going? My name is Jeremiah. I'm the Prayer Club President.

[Speaker 5] (14:05 - 14:13)
And we are here to do our presentation on the Washington, DC trip that took place from February 8th to February 11th.

[Speaker 10] (14:18 - 14:23)
How do we click the thing to keep it going? Oh, there we go. There we go.

[Speaker 5] (14:23 - 14:40)
Thank you. So at Washington, DC, we got to visit the U.S. Capitol and many other different sites, such as the Abraham Lincoln Memorial, the, what is it, the White House, which was under construction. And we got to visit many different restaurants and shops.

[Speaker 10] (14:41 - 14:48)
And we also, my favorite part was the museum. The museums are really cool there. Next slide.

[Speaker 5] (14:49 - 15:11)
While there, we were present for the ACCT National Legislative Summit. And here we got to learn more about community colleges. We got to interact with fellow community college leaders of their SGAs.

And we got to learn more about the politics surrounding community colleges, such as Pell Grants.

[Speaker 10] (15:13 - 15:28)
Also, how structured the event was, we learned a lot from it. And the ACCT National Legislative Summit paper that we're holding is the itinerary for the whole event and how it was structured, who we got to talk to, what we got to witness, and how the events were built.

[Speaker 5] (15:32 - 15:59)
While we were there, we had the honor to say a little bit about why we were there and how happy we were to be there, to learn more about the way that community colleges are structured. And the politics that surround it. And here we got to eat with the board of regents and the president and Mr. Michael Pounds, as well as the other community colleges and the students that they brought along with them.

[Speaker 10] (16:05 - 16:27)
I want to say they gave us the floor. They allowed us students to really talk how we felt, where we're from, our backgrounds, our testimonies, but they just allowed us to be able to be authentic selves. And that's one thing I really, really enjoyed about the event because it wasn't just about pushing rules and regulations.

It was really highlighting the students. But yeah.

[Speaker 5] (16:31 - 17:21)
And here we took a group picture with President Villanueva and the board members and Mr. Michael, right before entering the U.S. Capitol. And one of our favorite things about that for me was seeing the art that the senators and congressmen picked out on that hallway that led from the U.S. Capitol to the White House. Right.

And here we got to meet with Congressman Babin and we were able to highlight how thankful we were as community college students for passing the workforce Pell and how that will change the lives of many students who normally wouldn't have gone to college to now be able to now be eligible for student aid.

[Speaker 10] (17:24 - 17:41)
This was a meeting with Senator Cornyn. We got to witness Dr. Villanueva speak to Cornyn and just seeing how she presented on what our college is going through, what our college is experiencing. And we just got to witness an upfront, honest conversation and it was perfect.

[Speaker 5] (17:44 - 18:33)
And here we got to experience, what's it called? A fireside chat with the undersecretary, Thomas Kent. He's the undersecretary of education for the United States.

And we also got to see a panel where specialists in community college education talked more about the politics surrounding it and gave us all a background and essentially helped us form our theses to talk to our representatives. And we just want to give a thank you to the Board of Regents, to Lee College, to the president and to Mr. Michael for chaperoning us for the event. And yeah.

[Speaker 10] (18:35 - 18:44)
We just want to give a round of applause to you guys for setting this all up, for just allowing us students to have a voice, have opportunities. So thank y'all. Appreciate it.

[Speaker 1] (18:47 - 18:48)
Any questions for the students?

[Speaker 12] (18:49 - 19:14)
I don't have a question, but I do want to say that when the young men spoke, they were put on the spot and they spoke very, very well, represented the college very well. And I know a lot of times y'all think y'all are learning, but you had said something that kind of stood out. So I'm gonna stick with the bound by nothing.

So you really, both of you gave really good speeches when you were given the opportunity. So I appreciate y'all.

[Speaker 10] (19:14 - 19:15)
Grateful.

[Speaker 16] (19:15 - 19:16)
Thank you.

[Speaker 1] (20:18 - 20:27)
We heard a few comments from Regent Thomas. Any of the other Regents who were there want to offer any insight into your experience or highlights you may want to share?

[Speaker 7] (20:29 - 20:39)
I enjoyed meeting with Dr. Babin. We had a good visit in his office and the two gentlemen that just spoke, they were really wonderful. So they really represented Lake College very well.

[Speaker 13] (20:42 - 20:52)
Yeah, I agree 100%. Those guys were, I was proud to be along with them. They looked good, they represented us very well, and it was a joy to be with them the few days.

[Speaker 1] (20:53 - 20:54)
Looks like they may have outdressed you, huh?

[Speaker 13] (20:55 - 20:57)
Well, it kind of looked that way in that one picture.

[Speaker 1] (20:59 - 21:00)
All right, well.

[Speaker 6] (21:00 - 21:29)
And I just want to say I was delighted to find out that we had students accompanying us this time because for years we go to these events and other colleges have students and, you know, invariably we're sitting around. It's like, how come we don't bring students? How come we don't bring students?

So I was really, really pleased that we brought these two high caliber gentlemen and they were the same flight with Bridget and I. So yeah, got to meet them early on.

[Speaker 4] (21:31 - 21:37)
And were you aware that I believe one of them had, was it one or both that had never flown ever?

[Speaker 6] (21:37 - 21:38)
Oh no, I did not know that.

[Speaker 4] (21:38 - 21:45)
Yeah, yeah. So it was quite an experience. What was the weather like?

[Speaker 1] (21:46 - 21:46)
Oh gosh.

[Speaker 6] (21:47 - 21:53)
It was cold but it started warming up once we got there. So by the time we left it was in the 40s, but it was cold.

[Speaker 1] (21:53 - 23:53)
Well, I do want to thank those of you who went and represented the board as well. Thank you for taking the time out of your lives to go and represent Lee College just like the students represented. Well, I'm sure you guys did as well.

So it's great to have those relationships that we continue to form with our legislators and Dr. Babin certainly knows who Lee College is and so we just need to continue strengthening those relationships. So thank you very much. Okay, we'll move on to next item is disposition of minutes.

We have the audit and investment committee meeting January 13, 2026. The building committee meeting January 14, 2026. The board meeting January 15, 2026 and special virtual board meeting January 26, 2026.

Second. Got a motion for Regent Gerald, second Regent Cotton. Any comments, corrections?

Hearing none, all in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed?

No. I got to remember the delay for you. All right, so no opposed.

So the motion carries on approval of the minutes. I'm going to move to report the chairman. I have one thing I want to add today.

Some of you may have seen but Dr. Villanueva was named as a recipient of the Shirley B. Gordon Award of Distinction from Phi Theta Kappa Honor Society. This award honors college presidents who have demonstrated sustained exceptional commitment to student success through academic excellence, leadership development, and access to opportunity.

Nominees are selected from nominations from the students on their campuses. This is the society's highest honor for community college presidents and Dr. Villanueva was recognized. It was in the Baytown paper last weekend.

I hope you all got to read the full article but congratulations Dr. Villanueva. I have nothing else to report. We'll move to the building committee.

[Speaker 6] (23:55 - 25:10)
Yes, we met yesterday and even though the agenda was light, we had some robust discussion. We got updates on ongoing projects but most informative was we received a presentation from Pfluger and Associates on the master plan process schedule. That is that should be kicking off that there was a campus tour that took place on the 29th, January 29th and a steering committee has been formed consisting of executive VPs and VPs and that steering committee will have their first meeting I believe this coming Monday.

Is that correct? And then also there are a working group consisting of director level administration and about every six weeks according to the schedule there is a deliverable. Those will be presented at the building committee meeting and we want to open that up to the entire board to come.

Those that if it fits your schedule come and be updated so that we are informed along the process and not just when we're given a completed master plan. So like I say there are four deliverables that are about spread out about six weeks apart so looking forward to that.

[Speaker 1] (25:11 - 25:21)
Update. Any questions for Regent Fontenot? All right, thank you.

Move to a policy committee report. Regent Hall are you going to give us a report?

[Speaker 9] (25:22 - 26:42)
Yes. Okay. Yes to the best of my ability the policy committee finally met on February the 4th.

We reviewed update 49 and there is an included policy revision concerning it's around the board committee and how they're structured and how they're named. It's included and you'll be voting on it in a few minutes. We also have included in the board packet our telework policy for your review.

We made no revisions or have any recommendations to revise but it's for your it was requested a few months ago on a board meeting. You can look it over if there are any problems or questions that you may have then we can start that process of a potential review but we made no recommended revisions to that policy and we just we do have a large update number 50 that we'll be meeting on soon and it has an extensive some extensive revisions that we'll be bringing to the board at the appropriate time. And if Westman is there and can provide any thing that I may have missed because I didn't bring my notes he is welcome to do so.

[Speaker 1] (26:43 - 26:45)
He's indicating you have covered it all.

[Speaker 9] (26:46 - 26:49)
I've covered it all. Well that completes my report.

[Speaker 13] (26:49 - 26:52)
Oh actually I indicated I didn't remember it either.

[Speaker 1] (26:53 - 27:05)
All right we'll clarify that for the record. Anything else on the policy committee? Any questions?

All right thank you. We'll move to audit investment committee. Regent Geralds.

[Speaker 7] (27:06 - 28:30)
Yes we met on Monday and we discussed the international education travel program. There were three issues and recommendations and one was to determine if the program should be continued because it benefits a small number of Lee students. The processes and procedures should be developed to use funds in a way that would allow for equitable equitable participation and then ensure that all travel is led by qualified Lee employees.

We also looked at the professional development PD the travel. There were two issues but only one was was of elevated value and it just basically there's pretty much just kind of one person in charge so they'll be hiring additional personnel and then the new ERP system is going to help. Further with this program we looked at the convocation PD administration staff training and I'm happy to say there were absolutely no issues on that one and then our main campus risk assessment the only thing was seemed like in a couple of buildings there were some inadequate fire measures and not sure that smoke alarms or something are there or up to the point that we need them so Jacob is going to look into that and get back with us but we really talked about that issue wanting to make sure that that's good so that we don't have any of our students at risk or employees.

[Speaker 13] (28:31 - 28:34)
Yeah and I think he may want to comment.

[Speaker 2] (28:46 - 29:27)
So in the event of a fire there are alarms that will go off to indicate that individuals need to leave but they were built prior to the requirement to have fire suppression within the facilities and so the buildings that were referred to in the report while they have fire detection do not have any fire suppression and in our ADA upgrades that we've been making we have actively been putting fire suppression into some of our old facilities and will continue to do so in conjunction with completion of the facilities master plan to ensure that we spend those valuable dollars wisely as we go forward throughout the rest of this year.

[Speaker 1] (29:28 - 29:40)
All right thank you. Thank you for the update. Anything else on investment committee?

Any questions? All right we'll move on to report of the president.

[Speaker 4] (29:41 - 31:46)
Thank you. Thank you Mr. Chairman. I just wanted to echo how proud we are of Jeremiah and Joy who represented Lee College with us in D.C. You know our legislators truly enjoy probably the most hearing directly from our students and listening to them share their lived experiences how Lee College has changed their lives and they did a great job of advocating for students across the entire nation when they were visiting with others and so we were extremely proud of them. Next I want to talk about Achieving the Dream and especially for Heron since you're newer and I'm not sure if you're familiar with it but Achieving the Dream or what we call achieve ATD it's the largest national non-profit organization that is specifically designed to help the community college sector and they are about to have their annual conferences in about two weeks and it attracts approximately last year I think it was 6,800 people and our dual credit team was asked to present in one of only five dream sessions which are really special highlighting how Lee College used student voice to redesign advising at scale and resulting in improved persistence and credential attainment and so I would really like to commend Drs. Moreno and Sanchez as well as our partners at Goose Creek CISD for their leadership so thank you very much.

And then finally an update on enrollment so we are essentially flat compared to last year Huntsville is down 95 students due to the transition once again from TDCJ to the Windham School District. Dual credit and regular enrollment made up most of the loss but overall we're down 30 students compared to last year but I really want to emphasize and thank everyone who's helped to recruit new students but also to ensure that our existing students continue to stay on track so thank you very much.

[Speaker 1] (31:48 - 31:50)
Thank you. Any questions for Dr. Villanueva?

[Speaker 4] (31:53 - 32:05)
It's on March 1st. In Portland. Is it too cold or too rainy?

[Speaker 1] (32:06 - 32:14)
All right thank you Dr. Villanueva. Next we'll move to informational reports. We'll start with report of Lee College resignations and or retirements.

[Speaker 4] (32:16 - 32:25)
So we have Annette Ferguson resignation and Rosemary Kaufman which is really hard for us who's announced her retirement.

[Speaker 17] (32:28 - 32:34)
Any questions? Next we'll move to our financial report. Mr. Atkin.

[Speaker 2] (32:41 - 40:57)
All right. A short financial update for you this afternoon. As you can see our cash position is very strong this time of year.

We are up to 41 million dollars in our operating fund. That will peak during March and then it will start to decline as as we move through the summer months now that all of the ad valorem taxes will have been collected. You can also see that our restricted funds primarily those board reserves are sitting at 48 million.

As we look at those reserves compared to other institutions just a reminder to the board those funds are essentially from fund balance. They're unrestricted. They're saved from prior periods which puts us in a very strong cash position particularly compared to other institutions of our size.

As you can see our revenues and expenses are progressing very typically compared to year over year numbers. We'll move really quickly to our projections for year end. A couple of things I'll point out.

We are looking right now at probably a positive 1.1 million in unplanned revenue this year. That's primarily from tuition and fees, my book fees and then us we're collecting a little bit better on district taxes than we have in the year. That's both current year and outstanding taxes from prior year.

So that's trending a little higher than anticipated this year. On the expense side there are a few timing issues on here. First you'll notice that our salaries and benefits which have typically had very large estimated balances for the end of the year is tracking at slightly over budget.

Just a reminder to the board that's because we adopted a more aggressive allowance for vacancies this year. We went from five percent to eight percent. So we're very close.

Our estimate's pretty good on that. As far as other operating expenses our cost of goods sold is down in the bookstore which is why it looks like we're going to have some excess budget in that particular category. All of the others are are tracking fairly close to what we predict and so right now we're looking at maybe a two million dollar budget variance at the end of the year.

We are moving forward with our construction projects. Most specifically our ADA phase two. You can see in January we expended 561,000 on the regular capital projects that were approved last year.

In January or through this year we've expended 609,000. We have 1.2 encumbered and so a lot of these projects have been started. Right now as we review this in facilities we're likely not going to finish all of these projects by the end of the year.

So this these funds are intended to roll from year to year and these projects will continue into next year as we are likely not going to finish all of these but by the end of this fiscal year. In terms of our restricted funds remember this is our federal grants state grants and private grants. Our federal grants are trending at a negative 529,000.

As always that is simply a time delay on reimbursements. Our state grants are up 535 and our other local grants and contracts are trending also positive at 471. I would like to provide an expanded update regarding our federal funds.

If you remember in July and August when we were trying to adopt the budget the federal government had bills that had already been passed by the house that were intended to cut several of these programs. C campus being chief among those and so when we were adopting the budget we allocated operating funds to backfill what we were afraid was going to be cut revenue by the federal government. Well fast forward six months the feds have come through they went through you know all of the turmoil in September on October and have officially made some determinations on on some of these funds.

So I want to give you an update on the net impact that that will have on our budget. We allocated 92,000 for salaries in C campus that we that are currently being paid by the federal government that we thought were going to be cut. Since the federal government funded C campus through 2027 those funds have not been used and and represent essentially a vacancy savings for the college.

In addition to that we allocated 425,000 to C campus and other student aid deficiencies. Because C campus wasn't canceled we're not going to use all of the 425,000 this year. We we estimate that we should have about 250,000 of that 425 that we allocated left over as some of the expenses intended to be covered by that is still going to be covered on the grant.

Part of the reason that some of those funds are being expended and not all of it's going to be available is because with C campus for example only students who qualify for federal financial aid qualify for federal aid under the C campus program or the child care program. We've used some of those funds to extend that to other students who can demonstrate financial need but who do not qualify for federal aid. So we we are actively trying to expand these services as the funds have been allocated for this year and as always when we get to the end of the budgeting process this year we will reevaluate and determine what level we need to fund this program going forward based on future commitments from the federal government.

To summarize just a few of the other programs we are at the end of title 5. This is not due to changes by the federal government. We are at the end of our granting period on this.

We don't expect that we'll be able to renew this. So part of the budget this year was to move five positions that had been funded by the grant onto general operating funds of $134,000. With the SAMHSA program no impact to the general fund.

The positions that were in that program had already been funded in prior periods so no impact there. With TRIO specifically the student support services our award is 1.36 million dollars that is spread over five years and we're in year one and we expect that to continue so we're very happy about that. With TRIO education opportunity center we received an award of 1.4 million and we're in year five of five. We would like to reapply for this grant and believe that we would be awarded this grant if given the opportunity but the federal government has not opened this up for application to anyone. So even though it's funded in the bill, if they don't ever open it up for application it's kind of like a pocket veto and none of these funds would be distributed even though it's actually funded in the bill. So this is kind of the net impact now that we're into this fiscal year about six months of all of the changes and the uncertainty that we were dealing with with the federal government during budget adoption period.

With that said are there any questions?

[Speaker 16] (41:00 - 41:05)
Any questions? All right thank you very much.

[Speaker 1] (41:07 - 43:30)
All right next item on the agenda is public comment. Do we have anyone signed up to speak? Thank you.

We'll move to items of action under personnel. We have a consent agenda consideration of new hires. The administration recommends that the board approve the new hires as presented below.

We have Miss Brianna Carter advisor dual credit and Miss John A. Colon advisor shared dual credit. I heard we had a motion from Regent Warford and Regent Gerald's jumped in after the two of them with it with a second.

So we'll go with Regent Warford, Regent Gerald's. Any any questions comments on this item? Hearing none all in favor say aye.

Aye. Yes. Any opposed no.

All right we we have approved the new hires. I gotta remember to hesitate. All right next item under new business here.

Consideration of the tuition rate for dual credit courses. The administration recommends that the board authorize the president to set the tuition rate for dual credit courses to $60 and 10 cents per semester credit hour for fiscal year 27. Motion Regent Guillory, second Regent Warford.

Any any comments or questions on this item? Hearing none all in favor say aye. Aye.

Any opposed no. All right uh tuition rate is approved. Next item is consideration of adoption of board policy revisions for local policy.

The administration and board policy committee recommend that the board approve and adopt the revisions to the local board policy as presented and recommended by the Texas Association of School Boards TASB update 49. So moved. Got a motion from Regent Hall.

Got a Regent Warford second. Are there any questions regarding this TASB update 49? Hearing none all in favor say aye.

[Speaker 14] (43:31 - 43:31)
Aye.

[Speaker 1] (43:32 - 44:12)
Any opposed no. All right the adoption of policy revisions is approved. Next item consideration of naming opportunity for lee college basketball court.

The administration recommends that the board the board approve the naming of the lee college basketball court within the sports arena in recognition of Don Coffey's $200,000 philanthropic gift to the college. So moved. Second.

Got a motion from uh Regent Fontenot, second from Regent Hemsel. Are there any uh comments on this item?

[Speaker 13] (44:16 - 44:28)
Coffee is listening tonight and I just want to let him know that I appreciate the contribution and that he's made and the previous contributions and appreciate that very much sir.

[Speaker 1] (44:28 - 45:08)
Regent Thomas let me let me uh let me just read for the audience a little detail that was in this item and then we'll go to comments. So the detail is long time former board member and current foundation board member Don Coffey has committed a $200,000 philanthropic gift in support of lee college for the 20-year naming right of the basketball court within the sports arena. The gift will be paid to the college at $10,000 per year for 20 years.

The court will be named coffee court. Coffee court will be affixed once on each sideline offset to the left of mid court line. The naming of the basketball court recognizes Mr. Coffey's long-standing service and significant impact on the college.

[Speaker 12] (45:12 - 45:43)
My only question was I just want to know if it was standard to like only give a percentage per year you know once you don't do the set for me once you do the ceremony I'm kind of good so what happens or god forbid something happened or anything happened to Mr. Coffey but let's say is there like something put in place to where the first year he pays 10,000 if something happens does forego the rest of the money or is it guaranteed that we'll be given $200,000

[Speaker 4] (45:47 - 46:05)
they're all putting an agreement drawn up with revocation information as well as terms and Jacob would you like to discuss anything else that will go into that at all but essentially like you know if it's not paid then it's not kept

[Speaker 11] (46:12 - 46:35)
Regent Thomas I could comment on that it's it's a pledge he's made a pledge to the college and hopefully he he wants to fulfill that and we'll be able to fulfill it if he can't and sometimes that happens for various reasons then the money is not paid but there's no harm done because we're not going to spend the money before we get it you know so

[Speaker 7] (46:36 - 46:53)
standard way is or I don't know if there is a standard way I guess I was kind of anticipating like maybe half of it would be paid up front and then the rest would be divvied out through the rest of the years I don't know it's I guess it's different with whoever that yeah

[Speaker 11] (46:53 - 47:02)
place sometimes it's paid up front sometimes it's not but that's when it's called a pledge you know you're playing it out for a certain number of years do we have the cost associated

[Speaker 12] (47:02 - 47:08)
with like do we redo the whole court or they just paint whatever where his name's gonna be

[Speaker 4] (47:08 - 47:27)
so pencil and paint what's that stencil and paint yeah so I sent out an email today saying that it was approximately three thousand dollars to do this and then it's a one-time cost and as we go through ongoing maintenance we're going to have to paint everything again and so it would

[Speaker 11] (47:27 - 47:57)
go along in line with that at no additional cost I also wanted to say if you know the coffees um he he and Janice love this college so much and if he will tell anybody that will listen to him how much he loves lee college and so this is so fitting um for them to have something named after him also I feel like it plants a seed for those who have the capacity to give um maybe they've never even thought about giving a gift to lee college so he's sort of set an example for others to

[Speaker 6] (47:58 - 48:04)
possibly follow in the future he met Janice in english class here on campus so this place has a

[Speaker 1] (48:04 - 51:13)
very special place in his heart David right well we we do know that uh philanthropic gifts that are public uh do inspire others uh we've had some large gifts given to the lee college foundation recently and some of these were in the form of of uh bequest and and lee college is a benefactor from their wills now we certainly don't want anyone to pass away but when they do they pledge that lee college is in their will and we've received some very large recently in the last years very large gifts that were the seeds were cultivated many years ago and I think these opportunities when we have and I'm going to say you know uh don coffee's name is on the plaque on that arena outside when it was built he was a 31 year regent um I haven't seen any other naming rights afforded to the anything in the arena so it's not like people have been fighting over it I think it's a great it it sounds right coffee court sounds right rolls off of the tongue rolls off the tongue um uh it it it's a prominent naming of of a a court inside of an arena so I I do appreciate the coffees and their their gift to lee college this is not the only gift they've given they've given many many dollars in the form of scholarships and acknowledgement of other people other educators who who were here and so this is just a continuation of their giving to lee college this by the way there is a in the pack there is a recording studio you know coffee recording studio so this is not their first gift that had some naming component to it so I'm just thankful that they're still as connected lee college as they are so um all right any other comments on this gift questions all right hearing none all in favor say aye aye any opposed no all right we've approved the gift from the coffees and the naming opportunity for the lee college basketball court all right next item on the agenda is executive session the meeting of the lee college board of regents on the above listed date after proper posting in accordance with chapter 551 of the texas government code for the specific purposes provided will recess from open meeting to closed meeting no action will be taken while the board is recessed in executive session probably didn't get moved back that's fine

[Speaker 16] (51:13 - 51:13)
again

[Speaker 1] (51:27 - 51:44)
closed meeting has adjourned and the board the board will reconvene into open meeting so do we have any matters of concern for future agendas all right hearing none the next item is adjournment so we're done

[Speaker 17] (51:53 - 51:54)
thank them for the valentines