The University of Toledo is one step closer to offering a new degree program that would fulfill a need school officials have identified in the region.

“The glass companies need people with a material science background and also companies like First Solar and Intel, who are coming here and investing a lot of money in the state,” said Marc Seigar, dean of the college of natural sciences and mathematics. “We need to help them develop their work force too.”

The university’s board of trustees on Wednesday approved a recommendation to offer a bachelor’s degree in materials science in the college of natural sciences and mathematics.

Mr. Seigar said material sciences is a “very flexible degree” that will allow students to choose electives depending on what their career goals are. He said internship and research and development opportunities would also be applied to the major.

The approval by the board of trustees was the second-to-last step to making the major, Mr. Seigar said.

“After this, it has to go to the Ohio Department of Higher Education for approval,” he said. “That takes a few months. The first class we’ll see of incoming students will be in fall 2026.”

The board of trustees also approved a resolution to merge the college of arts and letters and the Judith Herb college of education. The new college will be known as the Judith Herb college of arts, social sciences, and education.

Melissa Gregory, dean of the college of arts and letters, said the merger brings several positive changes including enhanced recruitment opportunities and opportunities of collaboration among faculty in different schools. She will lead the new college, university officials said.

She said the merger gives the university a “powerful opportunity” to reorganize.

“We are going to be, with this new college, the social science powerhouse of the institution,” she said. “We will be able to bring faculty together in interdisciplinary cohorts to pursue new grants, new opportunities.”

Ms. Gregory said her favorite part of the merger is that the college of arts and letters’ Palmer Global Fellows program and the Judith Herb college of education’s Rocket Kids certificate program will be in the same college.

The Palmer Global Fellows program provides students with opportunities for international travel as well as offers every student a passport. The Rocket Kids program is an international program which allows students to provide recreational programming to children of Army soldiers in Europe.

The trustees also approved the merger of the college of health and human services and the college of nursing. The new college will retain the name the college of health and human services.

The merger is meant to deliver “relevant and innovative academic programs” and meet the university’s secondary goals of emphasizing healthcare related academic programs, said Mark Merrick, dean of the college of health and human services.

“This merger makes us stronger and puts us in a better position to meet the needs of our current and future students and the communities that we serve,” Mr. Merrick said. “It does so by providing structure, scale and alignment to help us become the region’s premier health professions college.”

Mr. Merrick will continue to lead the merged college.

Trustees also approved increases to the university’s room and board rates.

Beginning in fall 2025, new and incoming students will pay a weighted 2.65 percent more for housing and an additional 3.2 percent for a meal plan per semester.

The price of a standard double room — the most popular accommodation — for new and incoming students will increase from $4,865 to $4,985 per semester. 

The price per semester of the popular standard gold meal plan will increase 3.2 percent, or $75, from $2,325 to $2,400 per semester.

The increase in price for meal plans is to account for inflation, said Lee Johnson, executive vice president for finance and administration and chief financial officer for the University of Toledo.

“We all know that they’ve been escalating or staying at a higher range,” Mr. Johnson said of food prices.

Trustees also approved renaming a building in the university’s college of engineering complex. The North Engineering High Bay will be renamed the Cenovus Energy Hub.

Cenovus, a Canadian oil and natural gas company, has naming rights on the building for 10 years and has committed $4 million to the university to support initiatives like scholarships.

First Published March 5, 2025, 10:39 p.m.