The Ohio State Board of Trustees Audit and Compliance Committee met Thursday afternoon to authorize the establishment of University Development Strategies, Inc., and to discuss the OSU Compliance and Integrity Program.
 The committee voted to establish University Development Strategies as a new affiliate of the university with only one member opposing the motion. The purpose of the affiliate is to produce strategic real estate plans for the university in order to remove some of the responsibilities of campus area development from Campus Partners for Community Urban Redevelopment.
 Campus Partners is a nonprofit redevelopment organization that was created in 1995 for the purpose of revitalizing campus area neighborhoods.
 “All of us can probably say with some pride the accomplishments of Campus Partners over the past 12 years, 13 years,” said Jay Kasey, the senior vice president of Administration and Planning, in the meeting.
 Robert Schottenstein, chairman of the Board of Trustees, agreed that Campus Partners has done its job for the campus community but that it is time for a new campus entity.
  “I think Campus Partners has done great work for Ohio State, but I think they have become operational,” Schottenstein said during the committee meeting held at the Longaberger Alumni House.
Despite a new affiliation with University Development Strategies, Campus Partners will still be collaborating with OSU.
“Campus Partners has kind of evolved over its life,” said Christopher Culley, senior vice president and general counsel for the university’s Office of Legal Affairs. “It first started as a nonprofit organization that was set up to acquire property. Over its life I think it took on different forms … We’re probably going to have to retool Campus Partners again for a narrower purpose.”
University Development Strategies will be made up of a board of university and community representatives and headed by Keith Myers, the vice president of physical planning and real estate for OSU.
The committee also discussed the OSU Compliance and Integrity Program. A plan is being put in place to streamline public records requests and make them more easily accessible by the public. The plan to make those public records most frequently requested more readily available was delivered by Gates Garrity-Rokous, Ohio State’s chief compliance officer.
“There was no previous central cross point for public records across the university,” Garrity-Rokous said.
He wants to attach a rating system of importance for public records in order to bring down the average time it takes the university to produce the documents requested. Garrity-Rokous said that 23 days is the average time it takes to fulfill a records request of the lowest significance at OSU. With this new pilot program, he believes the university will be able to reduce this wait time.
The full Board of Trustees reconvened on Friday at 9:30 a.m. in the Longaberger Alumni House, where it voted to establish University Development Strategies, Inc. as a new campus affiliate.