Minutes of the Meeting of the
BOARD OF TRUSTEES
OF NORTHERN ILLINOIS UNIVERSITY

April 24, 1997

CALL TO ORDER AND ROLL CALL
The meeting was called to order by Chair Myron Siegel at 11:54 a.m.  Recording Secretary Mimms conducted a roll call of Trustees.  Present for the meeting were Trustees Robert Boey, Susan Grans, George Moser, James Myles, David Raymond, Manuel Sanchez, Student Trustee David Marquez and Chair Siegel.  Having noted the presence of a quorum, the meeting proceeded.

VERIFICATION OF APPROPRIATE NOTICE OF PUBLIC MEETING
Verification of Open Meetings Act notification compliance was given by Board Parliamentarian Ken Davidson.

ANNOUNCEMENTS
Chair Siegel asked the Committee Chairs to schedule Committee meetings at least two weeks away from a full Board meeting, if at all possible, so that recommendations have appropriate time to be included in Board report materials to be sent to Board members a week before full Board meetings.  In some cases, Chair Siegel stated, it may be necessary to act on recommendations from Committee meetings held on the same day as full Board meetings at the next succeeding Board meeting.

EXECUTIVE SESSION
Chair Siegel announced that the Board would be going into Executive Session and would reconvene at 1:30 p.m. , as posted, to conclude the agenda.  He then called for a motion to close the public meeting to conduct an Executive Session to discuss the following subjects authorized by the Illinois Open Meetings Act:  property matters as generally described under Section 2(c)(5) and 2(c)(6) of the Open Meetings Act and Executive Session Minute matters as generally described under Section 2(c)(21) of the Open Meetings Act.  Trustee Sanchez so moved and it was seconded by Trustee Myles.  A roll call vote of the Trustees on the motion to recess to Executive Session was approved unanimously.

BOARD OF TRUSTEES MEETING RECONVENED
At 1:39 p.m. the public meeting of the Board of Trustees was reconvened by Vice Chair Moser, who handled proceedings until Chair Siegel rejoined the meeting later.

MEETING AGENDA APPROVAL
Trustee Myles moved for approval of the Agenda.  Trustee Grans seconded the motion.  The motion was approved.

REVIEW AND APPROVAL OF MINUTES
It was moved by Trustee Boey and seconded by Trustee Myles to approve the minutes of the December 11, 1996 and January 23, 1997 meetings.  The motion was approved.

EXECUTIVE SESSION MATTER
As a result of discussions during the Executive Session, Vice Chair Moser asked for a motion to approve the Board's acquisition of the property known as the Greek property located at 231 Annie Glidden Road, DeKalb, Illinois, at a price not to exceed $175,000 subject to an appropriate environmental survey being arranged by the university at its expense and further conditioned on there being a need to expend no more than $10,000 to address any discovered environmental issues.  Trustee Raymond so moved and the motion was seconded by Trustee Grans.  The motion was approved.

President La Tourette pointed out to those present that the motion just passed was for the acquisition of a critical piece of property on Annie Glidden Road pursuant to the West Campus Master Plan and its future development.

REPORTS OF BOARD COMMITTEES AND BOARD LIAISONS

Executive Committee
The was no report from the Executive Committee.

Academic Affairs, Student Affairs and Personnel Committee
Committee Vice Chair Sue Grans reported that the Committee met earlier that morning and discussed some items that would be addressed later in the meeting.  The Committee also received a report from Dr. Lynne Waldeland on IBHE action on programmatic actions taken in May and June.  An updated report on the President's Retirement Enhancement Program was received from Mr. Steve Cunningham.  Dr. Waldeland also gave a report on the IBHE-mandated review for graduate programs, which is ongoing; further updates will be heard at the June meeting.  Dr. Rosalie Hewitt gave a report on recruitment and enrollment activities at the university as well as a progress report.  Dr. Bernard Ray gave a report on the progress of the Provost's Advisory Committee on Minority Student and Staff Recruitment and Retention.

Finance, Facilities and Operations Committee
Committee Chair Boey reported that the FFO Committee met on April 17.  Among items covered and recommendations made were the Fiscal Year 1998 Student Fee recommendations, room and board rate recommendations, the Northern Star printing and delivery services, and the Huskie Bus contract.  In addition, the Committee also recommended the financial system replacement and the university mainframe computer replacement to the Board of Trustees for approval.  The Foreign Language Multi-Media Interaction Instructional Lab was also discussed and recommended to the Board for approval.

Legislation, Audit and External Affairs Committee
Committee Chair Moser reported the Committee met at 9:00 a.m. that morning.  There was a discussion on the status of appropriations and capital needs of the university.  Legislation pending in Springfield in the areas of affordability, prepaid tuition programs, university employee pensions and the Board of Trustees development legislation were reviewed.  It appeared that affordability legislation was receiving bipartisan support with an end-of-session legislative package which could include income tax deductions for college expenses and the creation of a prepaid tuition program for public universities statewide.  The passage of the 1998 Capital Budget remained uncertain at that point.  Northern Illinois University was slated to receive $19 million for the renovation of Altgeld Hall should the 1998 Capital Budget pass the legislature.  The Committee discussed this issue at length and remained cautiously optimistic about the chances for passage.

Illinois Board of Higher Education
President La Tourette stated that at the March meeting of the Board of Higher Education, the Governor appeared and talked to the board and those assembled at that time.  The Governor had indicated he was going to recommend the level of support that had been recommended to him by the Board of Higher Education.  Since that time, the Governor has, indeed, submitted those recommendations to the legislature.  These recommendations do not include all of the items asked for by all the universities.  Basically, this is a request that would increase the funding for the public universities at about 3.4%.  Budget hearings are now being held in the legislature.  Northern Illinois University has completed budget hearings, both in the Senate and the House, and it is hoped that our budget will stay intact and we will soon know what the university budget will be for FY98.  The next Board of Higher Education meeting is scheduled for May 6.  One of the topics to be discussed at that time will be a new set of approval procedures for distance education, about which Dr. La Tourette had a significant amount of concern.  This issue, he believed, was an attempt to regulate what is impractical and inappropriate to regulate in the manner being considered.  It appears that this is another step towards regulation which, because of the technological capabilities that are being developed by the telecommunications industry and by other universities, Dr. La Tourette said, is highly inappropriate for Illinois.  It would put NIU at a disadvantage in terms of serving its students and state.

University Civil Service Merit Board
The was no report from the University Civil Service Merit Board.

Northern Illinois University Foundation
The was no report from the Northern Illinois University Foundation.

PRESIDENT'S REPORT NO. 8

Agenda Item 8.a. – Personnel Transactions
Dr. La Tourette introduced the list of promotions and tenure recommended by the Academic Affairs, Student Affairs and Personnel Committee.  As indicated by Provost and Executive Vice President Moody in the AASAP Committee Meeting, the recommendations were the result of a very extensive process of review at the department, college and university levels throughout the faculty members' service at the university.  These recommendations go to the President, who then presents them to the Board for approval.  Decisions made for both promotion and tenure are very carefully considered and those recommended have met the appropriate standards, including performance in teaching, research and public service, as developed by the departments, colleges and the university.  The dichotomy that people sometimes talk about between teaching and research is not found at a university like Northern Illinois University, President La Tourette said.  The Presidential Teaching Professors are great scholars, the Presidential Research Professors, by and large, are excellent teachers; therefore, he said, there is a great deal of confidence in university review procedures and standards to make these recommendations to the Board for both promotions and tenure.  Vice Chair Moser asked for a motion to approve the recommendations for promotion and tenure.  Trustee Grans so moved, and the motion was seconded by Student Trustee Marquez.  The motion was approved.

President La Tourette turned to the recommendations for sabbatical leaves.  Sabbatical leave is the approval of a semester's leave in order for faculty to conduct research, pursue professional activities and other projects which maintain their competency or to improve their competency in teaching, research and any other duties carried out as faculty members.  Sabbatical leaves represent only about 1.5% of NIU's personnel budget, whereas many companies on the cutting edge of technology and world global markets invest about 5% to 7% of their personnel budgets in training and upgrading. Sometimes these plans are contingent upon other funds coming in to supplement sabbatical work.  If any of the approved individuals on the list are unable to carry out their plans, those on the alternate list, found on page 23 of the President's Report, are then eligible in rank order.  Vice Chair Moser asked for a motion to approve the sabbatical list, including the list of alternates.  Trustee Boey so moved, and the motion was seconded by Trustee Myles.  The motion was approved.

Agenda Item 8.b. – Request for New Degree Authority at an Off-Campus Site
President La Tourette introduced this request for new degree authority at an off-campus site.  NIU is offering the M.B.A. program at three off-campus sites:  Hoffman Estates, Rockford and a site in the College of DuPage Community College District.  Of the courses required for the M.B.A., all but one fits into the M.S. degree in Finance, so that by the addition of one course at these sites, students would be able to complete an M.S. in Finance, basically at no extra cost, with no additional faculty.  This is a program that would be unique in the suburbs.  It is not available at the present time and would serve people working in the banking industry as well as in large financial institutions and, perhaps, some of the manufacturing institutions with large finance departments.  It extends the university's authority off campus and reaches out to people who ordinarily would not be able to pursue a degree of this nature if they had to come out to DeKalb and/or travel into Chicago.  Based on the fact that there is no need for additional resources, that these are three well-established sites, that this can be accomplished with the addition of one course, President La Tourette asked Board approval of this off-campus offering.  Vice Chair Moser called for a motion to approve the President's recommendation.  Trustee Grans so moved, and the motion was seconded by Trustee Raymond.  The motion was approved.

Agenda Item 8.c. – Financial Transactions
President La Tourette introduced the student fee recommendations and the room and board recommendations. The student fee recommendations in the aggregate did not exceed a 2.76% increase.  The overall increases are well within the range of inflation and what the Board has considered appropriate to hold down costs and make access to the university as affordable as possible.

The room and board rates represented a maximum total increase of 3.44%.  President La Tourette noted that the Board had previously approved a 3% increase in tuition with a further no-cost adjustment of .75% to offset the reduction of fees not being charged for technology and computer use in courses. Trustee Boey thought it should be pointed out that some of those increases are not because of inflation, for example, under the room and board rate recommendations, approximately $248,000 was necessary to cover the minimum wage shortfall.  Dr. La Tourette congratulated the Board and all the people involved in keeping our programs accessible at the lowest possible cost.

Approval was requested for the Northern Star printing and delivery services to use revenues collected from advertisements to cover the cost of printing and delivering the paper in the amount of $275,000, as endorsed by the FFO Committee, rather than $245,000, as incorrectly stated on page 25 of the report materials.

In the case of the Huskie Bus contract, projected revenues of almost $1.9 million would cover the cost of the contract and are included in the fees being recommended for approval.  In reply to question from Trustee Sanchez, President La Tourette stated that over a two-year period, the actual real increase in the student bus fees is between about 5% and 6% to cover the increased cost of operation.

The student accident and sickness insurance program is a program for students who do not have insurance coverage of any kind.  The university has been fortunate to hold the insurance policy cost to the same rate as last year.  This is a request for approval to collect those funds, not to exceed $4 million, and remit them, as appropriate, to the carrier.  About 55% of the students at the university are on this plan.  There are no state dollars involved.  Trustee Sanchez was pleased to hear that 55% of NIU students take part in the health plan and that the rate is kept at a reasonable rate of approximately $138 per semester.

The next item introduced by Dr. La Tourette was the financial systems replacement.  It is essential for the university to move forward in terms of developing a financial system that will be up to date and allow the tracking of financial transactions in a timely manner, informative to campus users, and in compliance with more and more expectations and requirements at the state level.  For example, the universities are going to be required to have the payroll deposited electronically for all employees, on July 1, 1998.  And as requirements like this occur, a much more sophisticated and up-to-date financial system will be needed.  Also, this will allow the Human Resource System to be brought up to date and made consistent with the financial system.  President La Tourette congratulated Dr. Eddie Williams, Steve Pace, and Dr. John Tuecke for making it possible to acquire the new finance system at the price of $3.1 million, which will be spread over a seven-year period.  Dr. Larson, President of the Faculty Senate, was also very pleased with the new financial system and the way in which payment has been structured so that the university can have an up-to-date system, and the cost burden will be reasonable throughout the university.  Trustee Raymond asked what the time table would be for changing the financial system.  Dr. Williams stated that most of the preliminary work had been done in that the vendor has been identified, as has the general scope.  It was hoped that things would be moving within 60 days.  At present, the committee is trying to address the "year 2000" issues.  For that to happen, the system must be completely installed by the summer of 1999.  In order to accomplish that, a time frame of 18 to 24 months is needed for installation.  Final contracts should be negotiated, Dr. Williams said, within 30 to 60 days.

The next item of business introduced by President La Tourette was the authorization of up to $690,089 to purchase a new mainframe from IBM.  A lot of this cost is installation and the training that goes with the installation of the mainframe.  The new mainframe alone, which has about a 30% or higher capacity than the existing mainframe, costs only about $275,000.  Dr. La Tourette congratulated Dr. Tuecke on the work that he's done over the last several years.  In 1990 Dr. Tuecke persuaded the President to purchase a used mainframe at $1.2 million, projecting that it would be useful to the university for three or four years.  Other universities, at the same time, were spending between $3 million and $4 million for mainframes that quickly became obsolete.  Dr. Tuecke forecasted the turn in the market in terms of not only the technology that was coming available, but also the sharp drop in price.  So the university is getting a mainframe now that has a much larger capacity and much more rapid processing of large amounts of data at about $275,000 compared to over a million dollars a few years ago.  The very prudent investment several years ago along with an equally prudent investment now shows a shrewd negotiator in that this price is about $175,000 or $200,000 less than other alternatives.

Approval of a foreign language multimedia lab instructional improvement will bring the university up to date from technology of the 1970s, Dr. La Tourette said.  This investment was essential, according to Dr. Clark Neher,  Director, Center for Southeast Asian Studies, in his ability to acquire a grant of over $700,000 to help with not only this laboratory in foreign languages but to promote the Center for Southeast Asian Studies.

Approval of a consulting contract with the Construction Safety Council in Elgin was requested in an amount not to exceed $254,035.  Revenues received will cover the costs.

The final item was an amendment to the current lease with Rose Venture, Inc. of Elgin for additional space to accommodate program needs related to the fabrication of steel drums for use by the College of Visual and Performing Arts.

Vice Chair Moser called for a motion to approve all of the financial transactions recommended by the President.  Trustee Myles so moved, and the motion was seconded by Trustee Sanchez.  The motion was approved.

Agenda Item 8.d. – Summary of Grant and Contract Awards
The Summary of Grant and Contract Awards was an information item introduced by President La Tourette.  He pointed out that page 39 of the President's Report showed an accumulated total for this fiscal year of $19,728,801 compared to a little over $11 million last year.  The university has seen a very substantial recovery from the problem experienced in January of 1996 when there was a prolonged debate about the federal budget and many agencies did not make grants for some considerable period of time.  Last year, there was a slight decline in overall grants and contracts because of that.  President La Tourette underscored the fact that faculty and staff are very active in seeking additional support for instruction and research and public service programs.  The deans have made the need to find other sources of funds to carry out the university's mission high priority since the university can expect only a 3% increase per year from the state budget.

Agenda Item 8.e. – Periodic Report on Transactions
This is a report of activity related to the transaction authority delegated to the President by the Board for transactions between $100,000 and $250,000.  There were three items, mainly from nonappropriated funds.  The intercollegiate athletic activity summer camp is a pass-through of collections to cover costs of housing and so forth.  The Biological Science Department, is a pass-through for consulting services the university is working on with Yale University.  The Watson Hall renovation project goes along with the new multimedia laboratory equipment installation.

Agenda Item 8.f. – SURS 1997 Legislative Initiative
Dr. La Tourette introduced the State University Retirement System (SURS) legislative initiative.  Mr. Cunningham gave a briefing on this initiative in the Legislation, Audit and External Affairs Committee earlier.  The legislation contains substantial changes that decrease the State's obligation to fund this retirement system.  One of the major changes is from valuing assets at book value to market value.  This is the result of the guidelines established by the Governmental Accounting Standards Board (GASB).  That changes the whole calculus of what's required for future State contributions to the SURS program.

The second thing that makes a significant contribution to reducing the State's obligation for the retirement plan is the introduction of an optional retirement program.  This will allow people to select a private annuity company or, an organization like TIAA-CREF or VALIC, to have their plan immediately vested and portable.  And that will, again, reduce the State obligation for the regular retirement plan.  As a result of that, benefits of the existing plan and the proposal under this legislation, Senate Bill 498, can be increased by changing the general formula for the percentage of salary that's generated by service years to a 2.2% formula for each year of service to reduce the penalty for people retiring at less than age 60, from 35 years of service to 30.  If someone now retires at less than age 60 and does not have 35 years of service, a penalty has to be paid.  It would also increase the maximum pension payments to 80% of final earnings.  Mr. Cunningham stated earlier that if the cost savings are allowed to occur this year without securing the benefits, it will be very difficult in the future to come back to the legislature and get that additional set of benefits.  Mr. Cunningham has been working closely with his counterparts at the other universities, and President La Tourette has done the same at the presidential level with the University of Illinois and Southern Illinois University to go to the legislative leadership to talk about passing this as a package.  President La Tourette asked the Board to go on record as a Board to endorse the legislation included in Senate Bill 498 and the overall effort to simultaneously reduce the cost of the existing retirement program to the state and at the same time improve the benefits to employees.

Vice Chair Moser stated that the Legislation Committee had stood behind this legislative enhancement and recommended the approval.  He then asked for a motion to approve the SURS legislative initiative.  Trustee Raymond so moved, and the motion was seconded by Trustee Myles.  The motion was approved.

CHAIR'S COMMENTS
Vice Chair Moser then turned the meeting over to Chair Siegel for comments.  On Agenda Item 7.c., the Finance, Facilities and Operations report, Chair Siegel noted that there was an 8.2% requested increase in student fees due to the need to make up for the shortfall in minimum wage funding.  Everyone he had talked to, including Student Trustee Marquez, Student Association President Ryan Eggert, Student Association President-Elect Beth Hull, and Student Trustee-Elect Steve Kovacs all supported that increase.

Chair Siegel said that in conjunction with the LAEA report, he wanted everyone to know that the Board had been down to Springfield quite a bit and achieved some very positive results in Springfield.  Some very interesting and exciting positive legislation for NIU was anticipated to come out of Springfield in the next few months.  Chair Siegel said that many at NIU, who probably wonder what the Board does, could be assured that the entire Board has been working very hard representing Northern and meeting their statutory duties.  In addition to every one of the Board members, President La Tourette, Dr. Eddie Williams, Dr. Carroll Moody and Kathy Swanson have all been very involved in the legislative process.  Chair Siegel extended a special thanks to all of them for their extra effort in working with the Board on these legislative matters.

Chair Siegel and the Board congratulated the new mayor of DeKalb, Bessie Chronopoulos, and the new City Council members.  Congratulations were given to Beth Hull, Joy Milano and John Berenger on their recent election to the Student Association.  Congratulations went out to the 50 winners of the Outstanding Women's Student Award for 1997.  Congratulations were also given to the S-Plan Students who were to be recognized on Sunday, April 27, at the Center for Black Studies.  Best wishes were offered to Ryan Eggert on his upcoming graduation.  Best wishes were also extended to Trustee Marquez, who would be graduating before the next Board meeting.  Dr. Judy Bischoff was congratulated on being the recipient of the 3rd Annual Wilma B. Strickland Award.

Dr. Bischoff was asked to make comments from the University Advisory Council.  Dr. Bischoff stated that the Faculty Senate has looked at the University Advisory Committee and would be making recommendations to the full Senate, which would then come to the Board for suggestions and review.  She stated on behalf of the faculty and staff that serve on the Advisory Committee, that they were very pleased with the relationship of the Advisory Committee working with the Board.

Chair Siegel said he would like to start something of a new tradition in order to keep the Board informed of some of the activities of NIU faculty.  When requested and appropriate and given time constraints, faculty would be invited to give a brief presentation on what they are doing. Dr. Clark Neher was congratulated for his recent personal recognition by the President's Office and invited to tell the Board about NIU's Center for Southeast Asian Studies.

Dr. Neher stated that as Trustees of NIU, they should be pleased to know that the Center for Southeast Asian Studies at NIU is an internationally and nationally recognized center for the study of Southeast Asia and has been for over 30 years.  It began with Peace Corps training programs and evolved into a program that now includes some 24 NIU professors.  These professors are actively involved in every aspect of the study and teaching of Southeast Asia and are involved in field research around the 10 nations of that area.  They are in the Departments of Anthropology, Political Science, History, Art, Music and, of course, Foreign Language.  At NIU, more Southeast Asian languages are taught, including Indonesian and Thai, Burma, Burmese, Lao, and Malay, than any other university in the country.  Tagalog, which is the Philippine national language, will be added in the near future as well.  All 24 of the these professors, referred to as associates of the Center, are actively involved in international and national organizations that deal with Southeast Asia.  They are involved in field work when doing their research and bring back tremendous amounts of information which they are then able to present to their students.  This is perhaps the quintessential way that research and teaching is nicely blended at this university, Dr. Neher stated.

In the past several weeks the Center had received two excellent grants.  The first is a grant from the Asia Society which will provide funds to bring about a new curriculum for middle schools in the United States and Clinton-Rosette School here in DeKalb is being used as a pilot project for that purpose.  The middle schools now have almost no study of Asia in this day and age and NIU's Center will be the principal organization overseeing that.  The second grant, called a Title VI Grant, which brings the National Resource Center (NRC) status to NIU, comes from the Department of Education.  NRC status is very rare.  Only a few institutions in the United States are NRC's for Asian studies.  It is a three--year grant of over $750,000 that will allow the Center to move dramatically in new directions, in outreach in Southeast Asian communities and K-12 schools and community colleges.  It will add new languages to the program.  It brings in Philippine studies in which the Center is a little weak right now and, very importantly, a Philippine economist, because the Center has no person in economics who is a Southeast Asia specialist.  It helps with the computer-aided instruction program and a variety of ways, including publications and a full $92,000 per year in graduate assistantships that would not otherwise be available.  One reason this grant was won, besides our renown, Dr. Neher stated, is that he was able to write into the grant that NIU provides a tremendous amount of institutional support.  Dr. Neher thanked President La Tourette and all of the people who have been so supportive of the Center over its 30 years.  To him, Dr. Neher said, the Center reflects everything that is best about NIU and about universities, which is outstanding scholarship and teaching.

Trustee Boey commented that more and more of our country's manufacturing basis is going overseas, particularly toward Southeast Asia and it was nice to know that some of the future leaders of those countries may actually be associated with NIU through Dr. Neher's international centers in the future which could only do a lot of good for the university.

Chair Siegel recognized the other UAC representatives present – Dr. Linda Sons, Mr. Jim Russell, Mr. Gordon Shneider and Ms. Kate Romano – and thanked them for being there.  The Chair also recognized Mr. Steve Kovacs, the Student Trustee-Elect who will be sworn in at the first Board meeting after June 30.

NEXT MEETING DATE
The next full Board meeting was scheduled for June 12.

Chair Siegel called for a motion to adjourn.  Trustee Myles so moved, and the motion was seconded by Trustee Moser.  The motion was approved.

The meeting was adjourned at 2:35 p.m.
 

Respectfully submitted,

Sharon M.  Mimms
Recording Secretary