Minutes of the

NIU Board of Trustees

ACADEMIC AFFAIRS, STUDENT AFFAIRS

AND PERSONNEL COMMITTEE

September 7, 2001

The meeting was called to order by Chair Barbara Giorgi Vella at 9:15 a.m. in the Clara Sperling Sky Room of Holmes Student Center.  Recording Secretary Sharon Mimms conducted a roll call of Trustees.  Members present were Trustees Robert Boey, Myron Siegel, Student Trustee Alex Alaniz and Chair Vella.  Also present were Committee Liaison Ivan Legg, President John Peters and Board Parliamentarian Kenneth Davidson.  With a quorum present, the meeting proceeded.

Confirmation of Open Meetings Act notification compliance was given by Board Parliamentarian Ken Davidson.

Trustee Siegel made a motion to approve the agenda as amended. It was seconded by Trustee Boey.  The motion was approved.

It was moved by Trustee Boey and seconded by Trustee Siegel to approve the minutes of the June 6, 2001 meeting.  The motion was approved.

Today we will consider one item for action, Trustee Vella said, that is the collective bargaining agreements.  These have been ratified with terms and conditions consistent with university policies and guidelines.  We also have ten items that will be presented for information only.  Among these is Agenda Item 7.b., Delivery Fee for the Alternative Teacher Certification Program, which contains information regarding a program recently approved by the Illinois State Certification Board.  It involves putting teacher training on the fast track.  We all know that there is a shortage of teachers, and this program allows local school boards, students and NIU to partner in speeding up the process of bringing qualified teachers into the classroom.  I would also like to call attention to Agenda Item 7.i., Professional Excellence Awards for Faculty and Staff.  It is always a pleasure to recognize staff and faculty who have received professional excellence awards.  I served on the Presidential Teaching Professors Committee before I served on this Board, the Chair said, and I was always impressed with the high caliber and outstanding achievements of our faculty.  The recipients of these awards will be joining us for lunch today.

Chair Vella then recognized Dr. Suzanne Willis, President of the Faculty Senate and a University Advisory Committee representative.  Dr. Willis said that she was filling in until a permanent representative could be appointed to this committee.  The Faculty Senate agreed to appoint Dan Griffiths to continue in that capacity along with Dr. Dolly Jones.

The Chair asked Board Parliamentarian Kenneth Davidson if any members of the public had registered a written request to address the Board in accordance with state law and the Board of Trustees Bylaws.  Mr. Davidson noted that no requests for public comment had been received.

Agenda Item 7.a. – Collective Bargaining Agreements

Mr. Steve Cunningham, Associate Vice President for Administration and Human Resources, reported that the agenda item on the collective bargaining agreements had been revised to reflect the fact that they have all been ratified by the bargaining units.  There are four, which include the Fraternal Order of Police Telecommunicators; American Federal, State, County and Municipal Employees representing food service and building service workers; International Union of Operating Engineers from the Heating Plant; and a teamsters local representing automotive mechanics and vehicle operators.  All of the terms of these agreements are consistent with university policies and guidelines.  Chair Vella asked for a motion to approve the four collective bargaining unit agreements presented.  Trustee Boey so moved, seconded by Trustee Siegel.  The motion was approved.

Dr. Legg reported that Agenda Items 7.b., Delivery Fee-Alternative Teacher Certification Program, and 7.c., New Off‑Campus Delivery Fee for Graduate Programs in Computer Science, are information items that will be acted upon by the Finance, Facilities and Operations Committee.

Agenda Item 7.b. – Delivery Fee - Alternative Teacher Certification Program

This item reflects a very important program, Provost Legg said, and the need, particularly, for teachers in areas such as mathematics and the sciences.  There just are not enough teachers prepared in these areas to meet the needs of the student body at large.  As a result of this, he said, we have developed over the years, in many places, programs that allow professionals in these areas to become teachers in high schools.  The need for certification and training of these people is very important.

Agenda Item 7.c. – New Off‑Campus Delivery Fee for Graduate Programs in Computer Science

This item is also a critical instructional area in need of instruction, Dr. Legg said.  It has to do with computer technology in general, and in essence, is updating the fee collected from the computer science students because of the high cost of delivering this program.

Agenda Item 7.d. – FY03 Programmatic Budget Requests

The Fiscal Year 2003 programmatic budget requests are in your reports in their entirety, Dr. Legg said.  I would just like to comment very briefly on each one of these items.

The Internet Enhanced Off‑Campus Baccalaureate Completion Program for Community College Students is very important because it addresses a group of students that normally do not have easy access to the on‑campus traditional educational mode.  It allows students to complete their bachelor's degrees at off‑campus sites using technology in the community colleges.

Enhancement of Instructional Technology is a continuing need.  As technology grows, it is a given that we need to keep increasing our support for it.

Pathways to Academic Success is very important because it is an outreach to a student base that comes from disadvantaged backgrounds and with certain other needs.

Alternative Teacher Certification we have covered already.  What we are looking for there are resources to expand that program further beyond what we are doing at the present.

Maintaining High Quality in Business and Engineering.  The bottom line is that this is an accreditation issue for many of the professional colleges.  This particular item focuses on our College of Business and our College of Engineering.  The quality of the education that students receive, as well as accreditation, is influenced by our ability to hire additional faculty who are truly professionals in the areas represented.

Enhancing Faculty Diversity is very important.  As we expand the diversity of our student body, we need to expand the diversity of our faculty base.

Assessment in Academic and Student Affairs essentially asks, are we doing the job right or not, after we have put all this money into it.  Therefore, it is an important item to place as a request in the priority list.

The last two items, Deferred Maintenance and Database Infrastructure Upgrade, are really upgrades in infrastructure and databases.  They are pretty obvious and pretty important.

Agenda Item 7.e. – FY01 University Results Report

Provost Legg asked Dr. Virginia Cassidy, Assistant Provost for Academic Planning and Development, to give the FY01 University Results Report.  Since 1999, she said, we have been reporting to the Board on our annual report to the Board of Higher Education, which we call the Results Report.  The purpose of the report is to inform the IBHE about how NIU is contributing to the six goals of the state master plan, the Illinois Commitment.  The Board members were mailed copies of this Results Report prior to the meeting, Dr. Cassidy said, and we wanted to take this opportunity to allow you to ask any questions that you might have about the report.  We would also like to tell you a little bit about how the report has changed since 1999.

The report has fairly standard elements.  We continue to report on our best practices, Dr. Cassidy said, both an academic best practice and a best practice in the area of administration or financial affairs.  We continue to report on the contributions that the university has made to the goals of the Illinois Commitment during the fiscal year and then identify our plans for the upcoming year and the ways in which we will continue to make contribution to those goals.

For the first time this year, Dr. Cassidy said, we were asked to identify institutional performance measures that we will track over time and report on in the Results Report each year.  In the section of the report that includes future plans, the first set of items under each of the goals includes the performance measures NIU selected to report on as well as the baseline data that were available to us from Fiscal Year 2001.  We will report and track our performance against those baseline indicators.  In addition, this year we were also asked to report specifically on how NIU can contribute to certain aspects of the state goals that the IBHE views as particularly important for higher education.

After the universities submit their Results Reports, the staff of the IBHE then prepares a statewide Results Report.  In that statewide report, they identify the contributions that have been made to advance the goals of the Illinois Commitment.  They also identify what they call challenges or activities or aspects of the goals that have not been completely met or are of particular importance at this time in higher education.  The challenges identified in the statewide Results Report then give direction to the campuses to look at what their own priorities are, Dr. Cassidy said, and to see how campus priorities can assist in meeting state challenges.  The challenges also provide opportunities to submit these program priority requests that the Provost just mentioned.  So there really is an integrative process where the individual institutional reports are summated into a statewide report.  The statewide report then identifies state challenges for the upcoming year, and the IBHE makes funding available for those priorities.

The last section of the report, which was added to the Results Report last year, is a summary of the findings from our program reviews of academic programs and our research and public service centers.  We reported on the program reviews to this Committee last June, Dr. Cassidy said. In reply to a query from Chair Vella, Dr. Cassidy said that the help of the Provost's staff, the Council of Deans as well as the Senior Cabinet members was enlisted in identifying not only what NIU's future indicators should be but also eliciting information from them about the progress the university has made in meeting its initiatives to contribute to the state goals.  The Provost's staff elicits information from their directors and coordinators, the deans elicit information from the academic departments and from the chairs, and the other vice presidents solicit information from their staffs.  So, the Results Report really is a report on the entire university.

In response to a question about challenges, they are the state challenges, Dr. Cassidy said.  After IBHE staff have collected all of the Results Reports from the individual universities, the Community College Board and the Illinois Math and Science Academy, they look at what each of those institutions has reported and identify the efforts they have undertaken to advance the goals of the Illinois Commitment.  Basically, they say "these are the goals we have been able to accomplish this year, but there are certain things that still remain undone."  That is what they call the challenges.  So the challenges are state challenges, not challenges for the individual institutions.

Agenda Item 7.f. – Annual Survey of Undergraduate Alumni

The ultimate measure of our success is the outcomes of what happens to our graduates, our alumni, Dr. Legg said.   We conduct annual surveys of our alumni within one year of their graduation from NIU, Dr. Cassidy reported.  The information that we receive from the alumni is shared with the students' academic departments.  The faculty use this information in a variety of ways, including review of their curriculum, a look at their advisement activities, their instructional methods and so on, to see where they can make improvements for the future based on the information that they get from the students who have graduated from their programs.  Alumni surveys are quite lengthy, and we certainly appreciate the time the graduates take to tell us about their experiences at NIU.  I will give you some highlights from one of our surveys.  This is the report on the survey from NIU baccalaureate graduates who completed their programs in the 1998‑99 academic year.  What I would like to do, Dr. Cassidy said, is just give you some information on their employment since they graduated from Northern, their satisfaction with their programs and their perceptions of some of the skills they developed while enrolled here at NIU.

The results we received from this group are fairly typical of the results we have received over about the last ten years.  This year we had more than a thousand alumni respond to the survey, which represents about a third of those who received the survey, making the response rate about 30 percent.  The majority of the responding alumni, about 64 percent, were women and about 15 percent were minority students, which is about 5 percent less than the representation of minorities in the class of 1999.

Our alumni are consistently very successful in finding employment.  This rate of 94 percent of employment after graduation is typical of those who report they begin their careers right after completing their degree program.  Eighty percent of these students are employed full time, and less than three percent of the 1999 alumni reported that they were seeking employment but had not yet found a job at the time they completed the survey.

Many of our alumni actually have a job prior to graduation.  About 50 percent of them report that they had a job before they actually graduated from their program.  Approximately 82 percent of the employed sample (94 percent of respondents) are very successful in finding employment within the first six months of graduation.  These alumni also consistently reported that their jobs are related or closely related to the major in their degree programs.  And 74 percent of the alumni in this class are employed in the state of Illinois.

About a quarter of this class have gone on to pursue graduate study, Dr. Cassidy said.  They are split pretty much 50‑50 in full‑time versus part‑time enrollment in an advanced degree program.  Twelve percent of the alumni who responded to us told us they were full‑time graduate students, and an additional 11 percent told us that they were part‑time graduate students.  So, we have some students who are employed only, some students who are in graduate school only, and then some students who are employed and also enrolled in graduate school.  The respondents seem very pleased with their education from NIU.  About 88% of them said that their degree program prepared them very well for their jobs, and more than 90% were satisfied with the jobs they were in when they responded to the survey.  The responses to our questions about alumni satisfaction with their degrees and their undergraduate experience are also very positive:  91% of these alumni were satisfied with both their degree programs and how they spent their college years, 96% reported that if they had it to do all over again they would still pursue their baccalaureate degree, and 94% said that the length of time it took them to earn their degree was reasonable.  These findings are also very consistent with what undergraduate alumni have told us over the years.

We ask the alumni a whole series of questions about many facets of their experiences at NIU, Dr. Cassidy said, but I just want to give you a sampling of their responses to three areas that include their thinking skills, their communication skills, and the development of their personal and organizational skills.  The graduates reported to us that they experienced a great deal of growth in how they thought while they were undergraduates here.  More than 90% said that their program helped them to develop their critical thinking and analytical skills as undergraduate students, and more than 86% reported that they had become better problem‑solvers and more creative thinkers during their undergraduate experience.

In the area of communication, she reported, approximately 87% of the alumni reported to us that they became better speakers and better writers by the conclusion of their programs and that they had learned how to collaborate while they were enrolled in their programs here at Northern.

The last area I will mention is that of personal and organizational skill development.  Of these alumni, 89% told us they had become more proficient in adapting to change and in managing their time.  More than 90% reported they had become more skilled at sticking with difficult tasks and completing them and learning how to work on their own.

As I indicated earlier, Dr. Cassidy said, these are just some highlights from what our graduates tell us about their experience at Northern.  We are very pleased they feel that their NIU experience is rewarding and satisfying.  We are happy to let the Board know about this and to express our appreciation for your work in making Northern what it is and in working with our faculty and staff to make NIU a great place to be, she concluded.

In reply to a question from Trustee Boey, Dr. Cassidy said that the results of the alumni survey were reported on rather regularly when the Board was first formed; however, no reports have been given to the Board in recent years, so we wanted to begin it again. 

I would like very much to keep tracking that, Chair Boey said, because I think the survey is a great program.  I am a firm believer that we need to stay connected with gradutes for two reasons.  To see the success of our own alumni through the various career paths, and to also stay connected from a viewpoint of supporting the institution through the years as they go on.  I say the same thing to the community college, at Kishwaukee.  This is a great service you are doing for us, he said, because it really tells us what is happening with our alumni.

The Chair asked if there were any future plans for tracking and staying connected with the same group.  Dr. Cassidy said that normally every year they do a survey of the first year out (students who graduated within one year), baccalaureate degrees and graduate degrees, because we think it is important for our programs to get that kind of feedback every year from the students who are their most recent graduates.  There is also a state plan for tracking alumni, she said.  All the public universities include about a dozen questions common to all the alumni surveys, and we report to the IBHE every year on the responses to those core common questions.  Their schedule is a three‑year cycle in which they ask us to survey the students who graduated one year ago; then the next year we survey the students who graduated five years ago; and then in the third year, we survey the students who graduated nine years ago.  So, we are doing surveys in addition to what is required by the state because we think it is important.

I would just like to point out, relative to our evaluating, what it means to say they obtained a job in their major area, Provost Legg said.  That needs to be put in a much broader context, because many of our students graduate with bachelor of arts or bachelor of science degrees in history or English or math, and they may not define being employed in the area in which they received their training.  But the point is, they get a very broad and very good education that allows them to be employed, and whether it is history or English or math may be secondary.  So, it does not measure anything in terms of our success or not being successful.

I think there are some opportunities here to track some additional data that could be very beneficial, Trustee Siegel said, and that could be tracking enrolled students, maybe those who have completed their freshman year, to see if their expectations were met, and if not, see if there is anything we need to adjust.  The second thing is with respect to what we do test versus what the IBHE is testing statewide.  Their agenda would be perhaps different than ours.  But, I think we ought to look at what else we should be and could be surveying that would be important to us, he said, not only in addressing the needs of our undergraduate students who are here, but also those of our graduates who have left for further study and keeping connected, which I think is a very important issue that Trustee Boey raised.  I would like to request that in the future, if we are going to put statistics up, I think we need to have a little better understanding of what the basis for the statistic is.  Having spent a lot of time in statistics years ago, Trustee Siegel said, I see those things and always ask that question.

In response to a question from President Peters, Dr. Cassidy noted that the university does do a freshman survey of students when they come for orientation and sign up for their course schedule.  We also do a college student survey with students at the junior level.

Agenda Item 7.g. – Vision 2001 - PeopleSoft Human Resource Information System Implementation

We have a good report today, Mr. Cunningham said, and that is that the system is now fully implemented.  He recognized Ms. Kim Hensley, the project manager, and Wally Czerniak and his division and  Information Technology Services, which also assisted greatly in this endeavor.  We had a rollout meeting for the new system yesterday where we recognized the project team and the many staff members throughout the university who contributed to the project's success.  One real benefit to these projects is the collaboration that you get among all of the different sectors of the university affected by the system.  The project was brought in within the budget allocated for the system, Mr. Cunningham reported, and within the 24‑month time frame.  The extent to which we track personnel obligations and integrate it with the financial management system is very significant to our ability to be aggressive and precise in how we track the numbers and expenditures at the university.  This project also positions NIU well ahead of the other public universities in the state with respect to the status of administrative information systems.  None of the other public universities have gone this far with modernization of their information systems.  As you well know, there are lots of stories throughout the nation about failed implementation, but this one is quite the opposite.  So, I think that we owe the staff involved, and there were many of them, real recognition for this accomplishment.

Yesterday, we did have a little celebration, President Peters said, and many of us sitting here have had bitter experiences over the years with implementing systems – over‑promising, not being able to do what we need to do, cost overruns – and then when we throw the switch, they fail.  This is not true with the two systems we have brought on here at NIU.  It is due to the fact that we have good partners, PeopleSoft and DigiTerra, which is our implementation partner.  But also, the management side of it was correct, and the good people we pulled together.  We were going to take the systems as they exist and adjust our policies, if need be, to fit the system, which is key and difficult.  I am very proud and pleased to hear the words "on time and on budget."  The last system we need to consider will be student system, but that is down the road because it is of a magnitude about three times as difficult as what we have done.  For our size and complexity as an institution, the President said, irrespective of the marketing that you hear, there is yet to be a major system that is anywhere near the task of a large institution.

It seems we have a marketable skill.  We should be out there in the marketplace, Steve, to generate revenue.  Well, one positive thing is I know that PeopleSoft wants to use NIU as a success story because we took their product as it was.  There were some issues with the product, and we had to work with the company on those issues.  We worked through those and we were on time and on budget.  There were certain things that we did that caused that:  a long parallel processing phase where we operated both systems and troubleshooted the discrepancies, and bringing together enough staff and the right staff to be on the project 100%.  And the quality of the staff involved is second to none.  My concern about market is that they get marketed away from us, so we need to go the opposite direction and work toward providing services to other universities if possible.

"Is there an entrepreneurial skill here we now have that has value?" Trustee Siegel asked.  It is my understanding on a couple of these issues, President Peters said, that PeopleSoft and others had not thought about how universities use a lot of contract employees, grants and contracts, 403b plans, etc.  Our people really solved some issues for them, and I understand that PeopleSoft will begin to adopt what our people had done in cooperation with them, and then it will be part of the next versions of PeopleSoft releases.  So, this is a long way of saying, certainly the skills are there, and we do not want to, obviously, set ourselves up in competition too much with what the private sector is doing.  But I am sure we have already and will receive calls from many universities across the country, that are contemplating or in the process of implementation, that will want to know, "How have you done this?"  And usually, we do that pro bono, but maybe we ought to reconsider.  One of the difficult things is, the President said, that many of our people were taken off their regular jobs – we borrowed people from ourselves to do this.  That put stresses and strains on everybody.  These people are heroes and heroines.  They worked on weekends, they have not taken vacations, and they worked on holidays.

Agenda Item 7.h. – Fiscal Year 2002 Increment Summary Report

Every year we process a university increment that is the single most significant budgetary and personnel related event on the campus every year, Mr. Cunningham said.  Northern, especially, has to meet several objectives, and, sometimes, competing objectives, with the limited increment funds that are available.  These relate to the maintenance of a strong merit system.  NIU is well distinguished in the state as maintaining a very good merit system for faculty and staff.  The maintenance of salary competitiveness with benchmark peer groups is always a tenuous issue.  It is one that, despite extra funding provided to higher education over the last three years, continues to be a hard target to maintain – maintaining a parity with average or medium salaries in appropriate peer groups for faculty and staff.  The cost of living issue is one that is especially pertinent to the NIU area.  The region we are in, the growth and development in the region, compared to many of the campuses south of here, makes cost of living especially significant.  Yet, we have similar levels of increment funding through the appropriation process.  Finally, responding to critical retention issues that relate to long‑term merit, position responsibilities, growth and scope of positions is a significant factor for all employment categories at NIU.  So, all four of those dimensions need to be considered during the increment process, Mr. Cunningham said, and we try to do that.  This agenda item is a confirmation that we administered the increment within the six percent guideline that had been previously authorized by the Board.  It has been distributed and is effective as of August 16 for faculty on nine‑month contracts and July 1 for staff on 12‑month contracts.  We consider the six percent level as a good increment year.  But we find, given national trends, that it has been barely what we have needed to keep up with our competitors and our salary benchmarks.

Agenda Item 7.i. – Professional Excellence Awards for Faculty and Staff

I am very pleased to have gone through and read the information listed on page 17 of the Board report to familiarize myself with the awards, Provost Legg said, and to know that this is another way that we recognize our outstanding staff and faculty.  It certainly is clear that we have many people who are qualified for awards like this.  It is what drives our university to achieve its excellence.  Some of these people are with us this morning, and others you will meet at a luncheon for them at noon.  The Provost asked those in attendance to stand and be recognized.

Agenda Item 7.j. – Annual IBHE Report on Underrepresented Groups

Dr. Admasu Zike, Assistant Provost for Academic Support Services, gave a summary of the Annual Report on Underrepresented Groups. This is an annual report that NIU takes very seriously, he said, and it is also mandated by the state legislature.  All public higher education institutions do the same report.  But this year, we were required to do a climate survey of our underrepresented groups.  So this really would be comparative information between us and other institutions in Illinois.  With a slight disclaimer, I will give you some bullet points that come out of this study.  The Center for Governmental Studies, particularly Pete Trott and Michael Peddle, did the survey as contracted by the Provost's Office.

Students were asked how they entered NIU, as a native freshman, as a transfer student with an AA degree or without an AA degree.  Over 60% of the African Americans reported entering NIU as a native freshman, more than any other survey group.  Women students reported the lowest rate of entry as a native freshman.  Students with disabilities reported the highest transfer rate with an AA degree.

Students were asked why they selected NIU.  Some 20 possible reasons were provided as possibilities.  The top two reasons clearly were "Availability of the Program in their Preferred Major" and the "Affordability of NIU."  Each of these was indicated by over 70% of the responding students.  "NIU's Good Reputation" and its location "Close to Home" were the next two top reasons averaging over 60 percent.  Students were also asked about why they stayed at NIU.  Although "good academic standing" was not offered on the surveys as a choice, students again selected from among 20 reasons.  The top two choices were "Satisfaction with Their Program and Affordability of NIU," followed closely by NIU's being "Close to Home."  Three other reasons ranked high.  Generally chosen by about 60% of the responding students were, "Campus Safety," which is really good to hear, because you always hear how much campus safety is important for parents; "Availability of Financial Support"; and "Computing Technology Resources and Support."

Each survey group responded that "Increased Financial Aid" was the top need or concern, excepting students with disabilities, whose top need or concern was "Improved Academic Support Services for Freshmen."  The second most commonly expressed need or concern was for "Improved Academic Support Services for Upperclassmen."  The "Availability of Adaptive Technology" was the second most expressed need or concern by students with disabilities.

Students were asked to respond to whether faculty treated students differently with respect to grading on performance; treating individuals with dignity and respect; referring students to counseling, tutorial services or academic advisement; and others.  Uniformly, faculty received high marks for treating all students the same.

Student respondents were asked to rate the "campus racial/ethnicity climate" on ten different scales.  Responding students from all groups rate the campus more respectful than disrespectful and more helpful than hurtful.  Generally, students said the campus is more optimistic than pessimistic, more communicative than reserved, and a bit more concerned than indifferent.  The respondents also rated the campus more guarded than open.

The greatest difference of opinion was on whether the campus is more socially integrated than socially separated.  Over 50% of women students, African American students, and students from the control group (majority students) said the campus is more separated than integrated.  One more thing that I found interesting in doing the report, Dr. Zike said, we also found in our honors program that 22% of the students were racial/ethnic minorities.

Agenda Item 7.k. – Fiscal Year 2001 External Funding for Research, Public Service and Instructional Projects

I would just note that this report is critically important to the growth of our university, Provost Legg said.  The ability to attract outside resources is crucial because universities really cannot support their total activities without it.  The Provost asked Dr. Jerrold Zar, Associate Provost for Research and Dean of the Graduate School, to give this report.

It is indeed a pleasure once again to report on Northern Illinois University's success, Dr. Zar said, success in this case being the garnering of financial support from external agencies for the advancement of the university's mission.  It is typical at major universities that faculty and staff obtain external funding.  The faculty and staff at NIU have once again demonstrated their commitment to do so and their commitment to advance research, public service and instruction to an extent that simply would not be possible using state appropriated funds alone.  At Northern Illinois University, the amount of funding for externally sponsored grants and contracts has increased each and every year for many years.  The data for the last five fiscal years are shown in the agenda materials on page 20 in both graphical and table form.  You can see that for Fiscal Year 2001 the total of external awards secured by NIU was nearly $39 million, an increase of $4 million, or 11%, over the previous fiscal year.  The graph and the table show the immediate past five years.  During those five years, there has been a 44% increase in external awards to the university.  The increasing amount of external funding for the benefit of the university is quite striking.  It is very impressive, not just in the amount, but in the variety of the kinds projects that are made possible by this external support.  Of the more than $38 million in Fiscal Year 2001 that were brought in as external awards, about one‑fourth was for research projects, about one‑third for public service projects, about one‑sixth for instructional projects and about one‑third for other activities.  Included under other activities, primarily, was student support.  These proportions are somewhat misleading, though, Dr. Zar said, for there is not a hard dividing line between the categories of research, public service and instruction.

The NIU faculty and staff's ability to acquire external funding from a variety of sources is beneficial, Dr. Zar said, because, among other things, different kinds of important projects are more likely to be supported by different kinds of funding agencies.  So, in the past fiscal year, for example, one‑half of the external dollars came from 15 different federal agencies.  One‑fourth of the outside funding was obtained from a total of 17 different state agencies.  And the remainder of the external support came from over 100 corporations and other business firms, from local school districts and other educational institutions.  It is also important to realize that our faculty and staff have been successful in acquiring increased amounts of grant and contract monies, he said, even in the face of increased competition nationally and even with the budgetary constraints of many federal and state agencies and other potential sources of funds.

In carrying out their professional activities, Dr. Zar continued, the faculty and staff personally benefit greatly from these external monies that significantly supplement the university's internal resources, but many others also benefit.  For example, business firms, professional organizations and governmental agencies benefit from the results of the projects executed with this financial support, and students are also important beneficiaries of externally funded projects, for many graduate students and undergraduate students are engaged to work on research, public service and instructional grants and contracts.  These students benefit directly from these resources of financial support awarded as well as from the rich intellectual experience this kind of involvement provides them.  And by engaging in activities deemed worthy of support by governmental and private agencies, the faculty are acquiring new knowledge and developing new concepts that can be transmitted in the classroom to help provide up‑to‑date learning to our students.

I consistently note that the acquisition of external funding is the result of the capability of our university's faculty and staff, Dr. Zar said, for they are the ones who conceive of the projects that are important enough and creative enough to attract government, corporate or other sponsorship.  They are the ones who write the grant proposals and project reports.  And they are the ones who deserve high credit for bringing to Northern Illinois University hundreds of millions of dollars from external sources over the years.  In order to assist our faculty and staff in their continual quest for external funding, the university provides substantial technical support.  We maintain an Office of Sponsored Projects whose expert staff assists in the acquisition and interpretation of sponsor guidelines, in the formulation of grant and contract budgets and in the intellectual and physical preparation of grant proposals and contractual agreements.  Some staff members of our outstanding Office of Sponsored Projects are here with us this morning, Dr. Zar said, and I would like to publicly thank them for their efforts.

As another part of the team effort regarding grants and contracts, once an external award is obtained by the university, the fiscal experts in our Office of Grants Fiscal Administration who establish and oversee an award account and assist faculty and staff in the preparation of reports to the sponsors.  Some members of our indispensable Grants Fiscal Administration Office are also here and they deserve public recognition as well.  It is a team effort.  A further link in the team occurs when faculty and staff projects involve the creation of intellectual property, the creation of something worthy of a patent or copyright.  We have a Technology Commercialization Office which assists in securing evaluation of the intellectual property, legal protection of the intellectual property and, ultimately, in many cases, royalty payment agreements for these results of NIU creativity.

In conclusion, Dr. Zar said, this has just been a brief summary to give you an idea of the energy, creativity and success with which Northern Illinois University faculty and staff have pursued supplemental funding, which bring financial resources to support their considerable abilities as research scholars, public service providers and instructional innovators.

Trustee Siegel noted that some of the figures in the graph on page 21 were the same for FY98 and FY99 and for FY00 and FY01.  Dr. Zar promised to look into the matter and, if necessary, produce new charts to be included in the Board Report for September 21.

Trustee Boey asked if there was any reason to believe that the impact on funding would substantially increase now that NIU was a member of organizations such as the land‑grant association.  What we find in many of the disciplines is, Dr. Zar said, that grants are executed by teams of scholars, not only scholars from our institution, but in collaboration with other institutions.  It is quite conceivable that collaboration with researchers from other universities will increase with the increased visibility that NIU has through membership in NASULGC and the URA and with our new Carnegie classification, he said.

The image of the university is very important when going to private corporations as well as to government agencies, Dr. Zar said in response to another question.  And that image is enhanced by membership in these organizations, although I do not know to what extent industrial leaders are familiar with these academic organizations.  But, again, it cannot hurt, especially when we point out who the other members of those organizations are.  We say that within the state of Illinois, there are only three institutions that are members of NASULGC: Northern Illinois University, the University of Illinois and Southern Illinois University.  We would like to at least be in a group that distinguishes us from the nine other state universities.

There being no Other Matters, Chair Vella asked for a motion to adjourn.  Trustee Siegel so moved, seconded by Trustee Boey.  The motion was approved.  The meeting was adjourned at 10:53 a.m.

Respectfully submitted,

Sharon M. Mimms

Recording Secretary