Political activism is not 'seeping' into SD universities, Regents say

During two days of a meeting at Dakota State University, the South Dakota Board of Regents were able to get five new members’ introduced to the experience of leading higher education in South Dakota by covering a variety of agenda items and tasks.

The Regents covered everything from budget requests, questions from legislators on politics in education and more.

During the meeting, the Regents also passed an agreement to make it easier for students training to become nurses to transfer credits between the state’s four public technical colleges and South Dakota State University and the University of South Dakota.

More: Dakota State University, ArmyCyber ink educational partnership agreement on joint research

Here are some other major highlights from the meeting.

Political activism isn't seeping into South Dakota's universities

In a conversation Wednesday between legislators and Regents, higher education leaders talked about the benefits of recent tuition freezes, goals for finishing the work of 2020’s Senate Bill 55, upcoming enrollment cliffs and more.

One topic stood out from the others during this discussion: a question from Rep. Will Mortenson (R-Pierre) about “political activism seeping into universities” and whether that’s a problem in South Dakota.

Regent Tim Rave said the university system has policies and procedures in place to address instances of that “seepage” happening across the nation. University presidents have tools to address students’ challenges with individual professors, for example, he said.

“We have policies and procedures to bring them back in line, and for the most part, obviously you don’t see it in the news, we don’t have the kind of activism that’s going on across the country,” Rave said. “I commend the presidents for running good, tight ships, if you will. ‘No’ is the short answer.”

More: Noem to South Dakota universities: raise graduation rates, end drag shows, and more

Student regent Brock Brown, who is at USD’s law school, said he didn’t feel his voice was stifled as a conservative in his recent Constitutional Law class when discussing issues of the day such as abortion or free speech.

“I think that when you’re actually in the classroom, through my experience, we do have a really thoughtful group of professors, faculty members and students,” Brown said.

Rave also said university classrooms are “laboratories for discussion” and there should be vigorous, respectful debates about different topics and ideas.

Sen. Casey Crabtree (R-Madison) asked the Regents how the national issue of closing diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) offices has played out lately on South Dakota’s campuses after “that action has already been taken here.”

Regent Jeff Partridge said the issue has been addressed legislatively as well as with the recent initiative for opportunity centers.

“It doesn’t matter who you are, where you come from or what you look like, we want you to have an opportunity in South Dakota to be successful, and to be successful in our universities,” Partridge said, explaining this is the goal of the opportunity centers.

The concept of an opportunity center advances the DEI conversation and eliminates any need to have something done on the topic legislatively, Partridge added.

University presidents make millions of dollars of budget requests

Each of the six public universities, and the SDBOR office, gave budget requests to the Regents during Thursday’s portion of the meeting. These requests are for fiscal year 2025 and could become future agenda items during Board meetings, or become bills for the South Dakota Legislature to take on.

SDSU’s requests included $1.2 million in base funding for its Agriculture Experiment Station, $1.2 million in one-time funding for inflating construction costs on the Cottonwood Research Facility, and $650,000 for new partnership with South Dakota Mines on bioproducts research.

USD’s requests included $30 million ($20 million in general one-time funds, and $10M in private and other funds) for a new facility to replace the unsalvageable Akeley-Lawrence Science Center, $5.9 million for a computation collaborative between USD, its Sanford School of Medicine and South Dakota Mines, and $665,000 for a USD telehealth collaborative.

South Dakota Mines’ requests included $650,000 for the aforementioned bioproduct research partnership with SDSU, $1.86 million towards the aforementioned biomedical computation collaborative with USD, $2 million for a quantum collaborative with DSU and USD, and $4 million for a patent fund.

More: Nathan Lukkes officially takes helm of SD's Board of Regents. Here's his vision for the future.

DSU President José-Marie Griffiths requested support for a teacher apprenticeship pathway and a new Center for Quantum Information Science and Technology but didn’t provide dollar amounts yet.

Northern State University President Neal Schnoor spoke about a new Center for Public History and Civic Engagement on campus and requested $143,500 for personnel to staff it, and $61,000 in operating expenses for it.

Black Hills State University President Laurie Nichols requested $3 million in base funding for BHSU, and support for a new Center for Civic Engagement and Leadership. She explained that the idea for the new Center came from House Bill 1070, which failed this past legislative session, to "create the Center for American Exceptionalism at Black Hills State University," and will be loosely modeled after Arizona State University’s School of Civic and Economic Thought and Leadership.

Heather Forney, system vice president for finance and administration at the SDBOR office, requested a $4.3 million tuition freeze, $3.2 million in dual credit funding and $10.7 million in one-time funding to retire some debt.

An update on the USD Discovery District in Sioux Falls

One update that stood out from a regular report on the SDBOR’s research parks was a bit of progress on the USD Discovery District in Sioux Falls.

Ryan Oines, chief operating officer of the research park, said construction of the first building for the district could begin as soon as September and will hopefully be completed at least by December 2024.

USD is already recruiting prospective tenants and developers at this time.

This article originally appeared on Sioux Falls Argus Leader: Political activism is not 'seeping' into SD universities, Regents say