Athletic director Lew Perkins, four Kansas University administrators and the student-body president now are the only voting members of the KU Athletic Corp. board.

Restructuring of the 24-member board was approved during an unscheduled meeting Friday afternoon at Parrott Complex.

“Am I pleased? Yes,” said Reid Holbrook, the board member who initiated the proposal. “The chassis is now in conformity with how this corporation should operate.”

The changes were needed, Holbrook said, to clear up uncertainties over whether the corporation’s role was to advise or to make policy. Now, the KUAC board will be strictly advisory, and the new six-member group will report directly to Chancellor Robert Hemenway.

The changes are designed to protect board members from being sued.

In fact, Perkins’ name is listed specifically on the amended corporation by-laws.

“He’s the one who will be served the papers if you’re sued,” said Jim Pottorff, the university attorney who also attended Friday’s meeting.

KUAC chair Tom Mulinazzi dubbed the new group the Chancellor’s Athletics Advisory Committee. In addition to Perkins, it will be composed of a pair of vice provosts — Don Steeples and Marlesa Roney; Theresa Klinkenberg, the university’s chief financial officer; Big 12 Conference faculty rep Don Green; and the student-body president.

Including the student-body president was a change from Holbrook’s original proposal.

“My feeling is, the fewer the better, but I have no problem with the student-body president being added,” said Holbrook, a lawyer from Kansas City.

Andy Knopp, the lame-duck student-body president, had lobbied hard for student representation on the new hierarchy.

“I think it was the right decision,” said Knopp, who is headed for Harvard Law School this fall. “It’s something I think the students deserve, and Lew and the chancellor recognized that.”

Perkins said the inclusion of the student body president was “the right thing to do for all the right reasons.”

The KUAC board also contains five members appointed by the KU Alumni Association. None of the five was named to the new committee.

“I’ve talked to Lew about that,” said Mike Maddox, a Lawrence banker who is one of the five alumni members, “and I think that’s an issue they’ll address later on.”

The last regularly scheduled KUAC board meeting of the school year will be May 7.