Oregon State University’s Board of Trustees sent a tuition raise to an April vote and approved a pay raise for President Jayathi Murthy when they met on Jan. 18 and 19.

The meetings for the Executive, Audit and Governance Committee, Finance and Administration Committee and the Academic Strategies Committee all took place on Jan. 18. The standing committees then brought their reports to the board on Jan. 19.

Elise McClure, chair of the Finance and Administration Committee, reported on the committee’s talks to increase tuition rates.

“A range of tuition rate increases were modeled between 4.25% and 6.1% with the caveat that the final recommendation may be higher depending on the results of collective bargaining underway,” McClure said.

According to McClure, the final recommendations on tuition will be brought to the board’s next meeting in April. A fiscal year budget for 2025 will be brought to the board in May.

In a big win for diversity at OSU, the Executive, Audit and Governance Committee recommended electing Román Hernández as chair and Maria Chávez-Haroldson as vice chair of the board, starting in July. The vote passed unanimously.

According to Hernández, this marks the first time in the history of OSU’s Board of Trustees that both positions have been simultaneously filled with people of Latinx descent.

The Committee also brought to vote a 6% raise for Murthy. The recommendation also included that the president’s compensation adjustment will be evaluated every October. The vote passed unanimously.

Julie Manning, the chair for the Academic Strategies Committee, brought up two new master’s programs the Academic Strategies Committee approved on Jan. 18: one a Master’s in Engineering Management from the ECampus and the MFA in Creative Writing from OSU-Cascades.