Board of Regents approve $450 million Memorial Stadium project

The University of Nebraska Board of Regents approved the start of a $450 million construction project that will change Memorial Stadium.

On Thursday, the regents approved the first part of construction, which will begin after the current football season. The first phase focuses on making the stadium ADA compliant and updating the infrastructure.

Trev Alberts, University of Nebraska-Lincoln athletic director, said the project will not extend outside of the $450 million dollar cost.

“We will cut the cloth to fit the quilt,” Alberts said. “So in our planning and estimation, if any of our anticipated sources either don't materialize or fall short of our expectation, we will alter our strategy and alter the total scope of our project.”

Several regents wanted more details before the project gets fully underway, especially because of the high price tag. Chair Tim Clare responded to these concerns by changing the process so that the intermediate review of the project would come before the full board. Usually, it only goes to the business and finance committee.

The board also approved a contract with an academic search firm to help hire the next NU President.

Academic Search, a higher education hiring firm, will aid the board in finding the new system president over the next few months. Regents emphasized the need to have the search concluded by the end of the year.

To aid in the search, regents revised the core pillars for the president’s role.

The group changed the job description to include values like including student voices in conversations and having an added focus on academic health centers. Regent Elizabeth O’Connor said those are an important part of NU.

“I think it makes sense, particularly with all the work that our health centers are doing, how economically important it is to the state, and our emphasis on trying to make healthcare more accessible,” O’Connor said. “I would be supportive of that.”

Current NU President Ted Carter leaves the role at the end of the year to take over as Ohio State University’s president.

Earlier in the meeting, Carter cleared up some miscommunications about the process to address the $58 million budget shortfall for the NU system. He said that individual campuses were not given specific amounts to work toward for cutting costs, but rather to do a zero-based budget review. The goal is to see where there may be duplicate positions or offices that can be consolidated.

“Zero-based budget review is not about reviewing academic programs. This is about the operations and administration of the entire university system,” Carter said.

The University of Nebraska Kearney recently proposed budget cuts that would potentially eliminate around 30 faculty positions and several academic degrees, including geography, journalism and theater.

Carter said the budget deficit may lead to some cuts being made in the future, but the current step is for chancellors to submit their zero-based budget reviews to the president’s office by Dec. 1.