MISSOULA -- When the Montana Board of Regents gathers this week in Dillon, it will be all talk on Wednesday during committee meetings and all action on Thursday during the formal board meeting.

Several athletic issues are on the agenda, including a request from the University of Montana to begin the planning process to build an indoor athletic facility on its South Campus and a new academic center for student athletes near the Adams Center.

Montana State University will request approval to move forward with its stadium expansion project.

On other matters, the regents will talk about long-range building priorities for the entire Montana University System, which the board is now discussing for the 2011 biennium. Number one on the 17-item list of priorities is a new $32.5 million College of Technology building on UM's South Campus, followed by a $5 million agriculture research training lab at MSU, and a new $12 million science building for MSU-Billings.

UM President George Dennison said he is looking forward to discussing the long-range building projects.

From his vantage, the topic is the board's most important business at hand, and he hopes the discussions will result in an agreement about the requests and priorities.

Another major discussion will focus on two-year education programs and initiatives, said Sheila Stearns, commissioner of higher education. Stearns expects much of the board's heavy lifting will be focused on the topic, which will be addressed on Thursday.

Stearns said about one-third of the meeting will be spent fine-tuning the budget requests that regents will take to the 2009 Legislature.

"We won't make final budget decisions or long-range building projections until the May meeting," she said, "but will keep refining our priorities. This is an important meeting for guidance.

"The campuses have done their work, and now we sift through their recommendations. The whole year is a screening of priorities and needs."

On Wednesday, the first item on the regent's agenda is a request from Montana State University to lease its football stadium to the MSU Foundation.

The second item is a request from the University of Montana to allow Grizzly athletics to spend $75,000 on the initial design for a new indoor practice facility on its South Campus, a new academic center for student-athletes on the main campus, and the renovation of its men's locker rooms.

For MSU, the request is the first necessary step for the Bobcats to proceed with stadium renovation projects, said Peter Fields, MSU athletic director. Such an agreement allows MSU to receive in-kind donations for stadium improvements, such as concrete work.

Currently, quiet fundraising is under way to support a significant overhaul of the stadium, Fields explained, but it's still too early for MSU to make any formal announcements about how much the Bozeman campus plans to invest in the project.

The amount and details of the renovation will be announced only if regents give MSU approval to lease the stadium to its foundation and after MSU has collected about 75 percent of its projected fundraising goal, Fields said.

If all goes according to plan, Bobcat football could be moving ahead on a new and improved stadium, including new skybox suites and turf, within a year, Fields said. Also on the wish list: an indoor practice facility and a student-athlete academic facility.

But before MSU can push on, he said, it needs regents to agree to the lease proposal.

"The reason the request is on the agenda is so we don't get ahead of the board," Fields said. "We need regent approval to move ahead."

As for UM's request?

"We want to get authorization to get architectural drawings for long-term plans for intercollegiate athletics looking out to the next five to 10 years," said UM athletic director Jim O'Day. "That plan includes priority No. 1: an academic center and learning center for our student-athletes."

The informal working vision for the new academic facility would include computer labs, a student lounge, study rooms, and new offices for the football staff that would also include a room large enough for team meetings, O'Day said.

The facility, he said, is a $15 million to $20 million project that, ideally, would be three or four stories tall and include a lobby on the first floor, a retail area for the campus Bookstore, and an information center.

The second priority is to build an indoor practice facility on the South Campus near Dornblaser Field.

"We are asking regents' permission to spend $75,000 for drawings and concepts for these facilities," O'Day said. Once that piece of business is attended to, he said, UM can meet with donors and talk about how to fund the projects.

"We've got a lot of work ahead of us," O'Day said, "but these are areas that need to be addressed as soon as possible for our programs to continue to be successful."