Trustees Approve 1999-2000 Budget, Elect Members

The Wake Forest University Board of Trustees on March 26 approved a total operating budget of nearly $538 million for the 1999-2000 fiscal year, beginning July 1.

During its March 25-26 meeting on the university’s Reynolda Campus, the board also elected trustees and its 1999-2000 officers.

The new budget includes $345.3 million for the Bowman Gray Campus, site of the Wake Forest School of Medicine. Another $192.6 million will fund the Reynolda Campus, location of the university’s undergraduate college and graduate school, as well as law, MBA, divinity, and business and accountancy schools. Budgets for each campus rose by 4 percent.

Undergraduate tuition will increase 4.7 percent in the fall to $21,420. For the 1998-99 academic year, it is $20,450. The increase is Wake Forest’s lowest of the 1990s.

Wake Forest President Thomas K. Hearn Jr. said the university is determined to slow tuition increases as much as possible in an effort to keep Wake Forest accessible to a diverse group of students.

The following were elected as first-time members of the board: Diana Moon Adams of Bartlesville, Okla., president of Diana Moon Inc.; William Louie Marks of New Orleans, chairman and chief executive officer of Whitney National Bank; and J. Donald Nichols of Nashville, chairman and chief executive officer of JDN Realty Corp.

The following current members were re-elected to the board: Marvin D. Gentry of King, president and chief executive officer of The New Fortis Corp., and Deborah D. Lambert of Arlington, Va., an accountant with Johnson Lambert & Capron.

Former members elected to the board are: J. Donald Cowan Jr. of Greensboro, an attorney with Smith Helms Mulliss & Moore; William B. Greene Jr. of Gray, Tenn., chairman, president and chief executive officer of the Bank of Tennessee; Louis B. Meyer of Wilson, a North Carolina Superior Court judge; Celeste Mason Pittman of Rocky Mount; and Charles Jeffrey Young of Lexington, president of Lexington Furniture Industries.

Louise Broyhill of Winston-Salem was named a life trustee.

All terms are for four years.

Hubert B. Humphrey of Greensboro was elected board chairman. He is an attorney with Brooks, Pierce, McLendon, Humphrey & Leonard. Two vice chairs were re-elected: Murray C. Greason Jr. of Winston-Salem, an attorney with Womble, Caryle, Sandridge & Rice, and Adelaide A. Sink of Tampa, president of NationsBank Florida.

Sheereen Miller, a junior from Charlotte, was elected a student trustee.