In a regular meeting of the University of Southern Indiana Board of Trustees on July 10, 2008, the trustees approved a teaching theatre as the top priority of the 2009-2011 capital improvement budget request. The teaching theatre would replace the current USI Theatre located four miles from campus in the path of the future widening of Hwy. 62, the Lloyd Expressway. The proposed 350-seat teaching theatre would be constructed adjacent to the expanded University Center connected by an atrium. USI will seek $8 million in bonding authorization and $7 million in authorization only for construction of the facility on campus. Other general repair and rehabilitation totaling $2.2 million also is part of the capital improvement budget request submitted to the Indiana Commission for Higher Education and the State Budget Agency.

Ruth Miller, director of Rice Library at USI, reported to the trustees on a $15,328 grant Rice Library received (2008-09) to digitize photographs held in University Archives and Special Collections. Work completed as a result of the grant will become part of Indiana Memory, the Indiana digital library. (www.IndianaMemory.IN.gov) University of Southern Indiana will be among 23 universities in Indiana, of the approximately 70 Indiana institutions of higher education, to have digital galleries open to the public. The USI collection includes a photographic history from the Evansville African-American community from the 1920s and 1950s, local architectural landmarks, flood pictures from 1937, and other images of southern Indiana that range from the 1850s to the mid-1970s. About four percent of the total collection will be digitized in the grant year. Currently patrons have limited ways of finding images in the collection, plus they must physically visit the library and browse photo albums to find the picture(s) they need. The digital image gallery will increase accessibility, offer a user friendly means of finding images and information, and allow the collections to be more fully utilized by patrons from anywhere via the Internet. The grant, made possible through the Library Service and Technology Act, is a federal program managed state by state. The USI library staff works with the Indiana State Library.

Officers for USI Board of Trustees selected
Evansville resident John M. Dunn the current chair of the University of Southern Indiana Board of Trustees, will continue as chair, elected during the annual meeting of the USI Board of Trustees on July 10, 2008. Jeffrey L. Knight, Evansville, will serve as vice chair and chair of the Finance and Audit Committee with W. Harold Calloway, Evansville, serving as vice chair and chair of the Long Range Planning Committee. Amy MacDonell, Indianapolis, will serve as board secretary.