The Board of Trustees discussed housing renovations, approved appropriation requests and discussed Stamford’s food pantry at their Wednesday meeting.
University of Connecticut President Radenka Maric stated that to grow UConn, housing would need to be upgraded. State senate leaders told Maric to increase UConn’s enrollment to 40,000, or by 8,000 students, in an open letter published on Aug. 27.
The university’s chief financial officer Jeffery Geoghegan stated that UConn is currently above capacity for housing. Geoghegan also stated that $8 million in renovations took place over the summer.
“We are at 103% of our current housing. So that means every residence hall, we took doubles and created triples,” said Geoghegan. “We’ve done surveys before, and we know that we need to upgrade and maintain our current housing.”
The Board of Trustees also voted to approve two state appropriation requests. They will ask the State of Connecticut for $300.1 million for UConn in fiscal year 2026 and $284.7 million in fiscal year 2027.
The other state appropriation request was for UConn Health. They voted to approve a state appropriation request for $187.9 million in fiscal year 2026 and $174.1 million in fiscal year 2027.
UConn Stamford dean Jennifer Orlikoff gave a presentation to the Board of Trustees where she discussed internships and the Husky Harvest food pantry at UConn Stamford.
“Our students have access to almost 5,000 internships on an annual basis within 30 miles of Stamford,” said Orlikoff.
The dean also told the Board about grants for the Husky Harvest food pantry. Husky Harvest is open to students, faculty and staff at its locations in Avery Point, Hartford, Stamford, Storrs, Waterbury, UConn Health in Farmington and the UConn School of Law in Hartford, according to the Husky Harvest website.
“We were the campus that started the whole food pantry idea for UConn,” said Orlikoff. She stated that Husky Harvest was started by a Stamford sociology professor in 2022.
Orlikoff spoke about grants Husky Harvest received, including a grant from the Stamford mayor’s office to get an additional fridge.
“Stop and Shop has been a great, great partner and now […] Filling in the Blanks is coming and they’re going to be providing us $30,000 worth of food every year,” said Orlikoff. She stated that Stop and Shop previously gave Husky Harvest a one-time grant of $10,000.
Orlikoff also said that a new meal plan at Stamford, the Local Eatery Plan, currently involves partnerships with seven restaurants where students can buy meal passes and spend them at local restaurants. She stated that there was a goal to expand the plan to 10 restaurants.
Senate Executive Committee chair Laura Burton proposed making a multicampus standing committee and stated that she wanted to work on “inviting folks in to share their views.”
There were a few important absences from the meeting. UConn is currently in the final year of its five-year tuition plan, though this was not mentioned by the Board. UConn is planning on scheduling town hall meetings to discuss tuition before the Board of Trustees takes up this issue later this fall, the Daily Campus reported.
While Maric stated that housing needed to be expanded to accommodate a rise in students, the open letter and request for a plan to expand enrollment to 40,000 students was also noticeably absent.
Public participation is allowed at board meetings and anyone who wants to make a public comment can ask to speak at least 24 hours ahead of the meeting time. At Wednesday’s meeting, no public comments were made. While written comments were submitted, they were not read aloud in the meeting, but rather shared with board members ahead of the meeting, according to a board member.
No mention of the group UConn Divest was made, though Burton mentioned that a presentation would be held on new policies, including policies surrounding campus protests, at the Senate’s Justice, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Committee meeting.