"Ball State has the opportunity to assist the state in the coming years," said Beverley Pitts, university provost. "The substantial growth of middle-aged and elderly populations in Indiana will heighten the incidence of cardiopulmonary disease, and respiratory therapists will be needed to assist in the treatment of patients with these illnesses.”

A recent federal government study supports the need for the program. The U.S. Department of Labor projects the medical field will require 43 percent more respiratory therapists within the next six years.

Indianapolis-based Clarian Health Partners asked Ball State to join a consortium to address the growing need for respiratory therapists. This continues a relationship between Clarian and Ball State, which currently offer joint degree programs in the clinical laboratory sciences of nuclear medicine, radiation therapy and radiography.

Ball State's Department of Physiology and Health Science will begin offering the degree next fall. Students who choose to complete their first two years of study at Ball State will finish their degree at Clarian facilities in central Indiana.

Indiana University, Purdue University and the University of Indianapolis are also being invited to join the consortium.

The trustees also approved the sale or trade of the former Alpha Tau Omega house at 200 N. McKinley Ave. and the acquisition of five properties adjacent to campus. The properties that the university has reached agreements to purchase are:

• The duplex at 316-318 N. Talley Ave., and,
• 1609, 1613 and 1617 W. Riverside Ave.

The university will begin proceedings to exercise condemnation proceedings to acquire property at 601 N. Calvert Ave.

“It was the university’s hope to reach a fair and mutually agreeable purchase price for the property on Calvert Avenue, and we underwent lengthy negotiations in an effort to do so,” said Thomas Kinghorn, vice president for business affairs and treasurer. “However, the university’s good faith efforts have not resulted in an agreement, and as a last resort, we are proceeding through legal means to acquire the property.”

The property is being acquired for a parking facility for faculty, students, staff and members of the general public accessing the Music Instruction Building, currently under construction, as well as Emens Auditorium and the Museum of Art.

The trustees also voted to bestow honorary doctorates upon Brian A. Gallagher and Richard M. Linnehan at the May 2003 commencement ceremony.

Gallagher, who received his bachelor's degree in social work in 1981 from Ball State, is the president and chief executive officer of the United Way of America. Linnehan is a veteran of three NASA shuttle flights, including one in 1996 during which research experiments were conducted in cooperation with Ball State's Human Performance Laboratory.

(NOTE TO EDITORS: For more information about the respiratory therapy program, contact Robert Pinger, chair of the Department of Physiology and Health Science, at rpinger@bsu.eduor (765) 285-5961.)