With the economy in decline, many people are looking to save money wherever they can, and the Board of Regents members are no exception.

A scaled-back Board of Regents meeting will take place on Wednesday in Mass Media and Technology Hall, and the board will have to make decisions about employee salaries and new academic programs.

The Jan. 27 meeting was supposed to take place in Frankfort, but administrators decided to move it to Bowling Green to save the expenses involved in traveling, said Robbin Taylor, vice president for Public Affairs.

It’s a tradition for the January board meeting to take place in Frankfort at the beginning of the legislative session, President Gary Ransdell said.

Regents also typically host a reception for the General Assembly, he said.

But Ransdell and Board of Regents Chair Jim Meyer decided this wasn’t the time to spend the money to have the Frankfort meeting and reception, given the budget pressures in the state and higher education, Ransdell said.

“We felt like we sent a more thoughtful signal by not going,” he said.

Even with a change in location, the board will have several items on their agenda.

They’ll decide whether to renew Athletics Director Wood Selig’s contract and whether to give a raise to Dean Kahler, associate vice president for Enrollment Management, said Deborah Wilkins, chief of staff and general counsel.

At the board’s October meeting, the regents postponed decisions about raises for both Selig and Kahler.

Selig’s raise of about $34,000 is not included in his newly revised contract on the agenda for Wednesday, Wilkins said.

Selig will still be getting a raise, but it will come from private donations approved in December by the WKU Foundation, she said.

The foundation oversees private donations to the university, and some of the money set aside for athletics will pay for Selig’s raise, Wilkins said.

In October, Kahler’s proposed raise was about $19,000, but that raise will now be proposed in phases, and a raise of about $9,000 will be voted on at Wednesday’s meeting, Wilkins said.

The board is also set to approve several new undergraduate certificates, including those in American Sign Language studies and computer literacy, according to the meeting’s agenda materials.

Formal discussions of raises for two of Western’s administrators have been pushed back.

The Board of Regents voted on Friday to postpone proposed raises for Athletics Director Wood Selig and Dean Kahler, associate vice president of Enrollment Management.

The raises — about $34,000 for Selig and about $19,000 for Kahler — will be discussed again at the next board meeting on Jan. 26 and 27 in Frankfort.

A little before 9 a.m. on Friday, a small group of protestors gathered in the lobby of Mass Media and Technology Hall, carrying neon-colored signs and chanting to voice their concerns about the proposed raises.

Among them was Fabian Alvarez, an English instructor who presented a petition with about 260 faculty and staff signatures to Faculty Regent Patricia Minter to give to the board.

Alvarez said in an e-mail that he isn’t sure what will change between now and January.

“My hope is that things will change, and on the surface, there appears to be some movement,” he said. “Whether or not that is lip service is yet to be seen.”

Selig declined to comment on the board’s decision, and Kahler couldn’t be reached for comment by press time.

Alvarez said in the e-mail that, while the protests went well, they weren’t what ultimately made the difference.

“It was the culmination … overall though, it seems to me that faith has been restored on several levels regarding the relationship among faculty, staff, students and administration,” he said in the e-mail.

Regents were originally going to vote on a revamped contract for Selig near the end of the meeting, which included a longer list of incentives for good performances by Western’s athletic teams and an increased base pay of $175,000.

At the start of the meeting, Chairman Jim Meyer suggested postponing any more discussion of Selig’s raise until the board’s January meeting.

That would give regents time to address concerns that faculty, students and staff have, Meyer said at the meeting.

The board approved Meyer’s suggestion.

Kahler’s raise was included in a list of more than 200 other personnel actions.

Minter asked the board to treat Kahler’s raise as a separate item from the rest of the list so regents could address specific issues she and others had with it.

The board went into a nearly hour-long closed session to discuss Kahler’s raise and decided to bring up the issue again at the January meeting.

Minter said she applauded the decision to postpone discussion of the raises because it showed the board’s willingness to hear faculty, staff and student viewpoints.

Student Regent Kevin Smiley also said he thinks the regents made a good decision.

Many students are concerned about the raises, he said.

Smiley said he can’t predict what will happen between now and January, but he thinks there will be ongoing discussions about the raises between now and then.

“We’ll see how those go,” he said.

It’s been nearly three years since Western’s Board of Regents voted to begin the transition to Football Bowl Subdivision play, but the three remaining members from that group retain the same message — be patient.

“It’s a work in progress,” Chairman Jim Meyer said. “As far as our progress goes, I’ve always said it’s going to take us at least five years from now, or at least last year, to be able to compete and win on a consistent basis and get our program where we want it to be.”

This season marks the Hilltoppers’ first as a full-fledged FBS member, and only three regents remain from the nine who voted in 2006.

Those regents — Meyer, Yevette Haskins and Larry Zielke — all acknowledge the pressure for results to be shown on and off the field.

However, each is adamant that the process can’t be rushed.

“This isn’t going to be done in a day, and we’re going to have to take some bumps and some hits,” Vice Chairwoman Haskins said. “We’re not going to come into this area of athletics winning all our games. It will take a while for us to get where we want to go.”

The Board of Regents first approved the transition to FBS on Nov. 2, 2006, by a vote of 7-2.

The dissenters were former Regent Forrest Roberts and former Faculty Regent Robert Dietle.

Dietle, an associate history professor, was about 10 minutes into an argument against the transition before being interrupted by Zielke, who called for an immediate vote.

Dietle said in an e-mail on Wednesday that he still feels the move was a financial mistake by President Gary Ransdell and the university.

“As we have already seen, the cost of our football program continues to increase regardless of how well it performs — and regardless of the financial pressures felt by the rest of the university,” Dietle said in the e-mail. “Moving to (FBS) football is the most foolish decision Dr. Ransdell has made since he has come to WKU. Let me add that even if we were winning all our games, my opinion would be the same.”

Zielke said he feels the transition will eventually pay dividends by placing Western in the national spotlight.

“I look at the state of Kentucky as having a ‘duopoly,’” Zielke said. “That is, where the University of Louisville and (the University of Kentucky) were the only teams in play for conference championships, bowl games and things of that nature. I thought it was important for Western, if it’s going to be a national player, to get into this arena.”

Meyer said he knows that Western accepted a large undertaking with the FBS transition, but he feels confident that the move will prove to be a smart one in the long run.

“All of these things certainly cost money, and some felt that it took away from money that could be spent elsewhere,” he said. “But my feeling was that if we went to the top level of athletics, it would help the university by raising the bar overall.”