Minutes of the

NIU Board of Trustees

ACADEMIC AFFAIRS, STUDENT AFFAIRS

AND PERSONNEL COMMITTEE

June 6, 2002

CALL TO ORDER AND ROLL CALL

The meeting was called to order by Chair Barbara Giorgi Vella at 9:08 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 Catherine Adduci and Robert Boey, Student Trustee Alex Alaniz and Chair Vella.  Trustee Myron Siegel was present by teleconference.  Also present were Committee Liaison Ivan Legg, President John Peters and Board Parliamentarian Kenneth Davidson.  With a quorum present, the meeting proceeded.

VERIFICATION OF APPROPRIATE NOTICE OF PUBLIC MEETING

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

MEETING AGENDA APPROVAL

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

REVIEW AND APPROVAL OF MINUTES

It was moved by Trustee Adduci and seconded by Trustee Boey to approve the minutes of the March 7, 2002 meeting.  The motion was approved.

CHAIR'S COMMENTS

Chair Vella stated that the agenda included several action items, including a request for a new undergraduate minor, a request for a new emphasis in an undergraduate program and a new specialization within a master’s program, a request to delete specializations in master’s level programs, and the appointment of a dean.  The last item to be presented for action is a request to move submission of tenure and promotion recommendations from March to the June Board Meeting.  This will facilitate the evaluation process by providing more up‑to‑date materials for the faculty under consideration for tenure and promotion.  One of the three information items is the university’s report on the programs and centers reviewed by the Academic Planning Council in 2001 and 2002.  The other two items address NIU’s reaccreditation by the Higher Learning Commission of the North Central Association and the recognition of emeritus faculty.

I would like at this time to recognize the representatives of the University Advisory Committee, Dolly Jones and Dan Griffiths.  Thank you for coming.  Dr. Griffiths stated that he was in strong support of Agenda Item 7.e., the request to move submission of tenure and promotion recommendations to the June meeting.  I think it will allow for a fairer and more complete review, he said, and it was great to see it on the agenda.

PUBLIC COMMENT

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.

UNIVERSITY REPORT

Dr. Legg recognized the presence of former president Bill Monat and thanked him for coming.

The first item deals with changes in academic programs, Provost Legg said.  In all these requests, I will highlight the major components.

Agenda Item 7.a. – Request for a New Minor

New subdivisions of existing programs, including minors, require the approval of the Board of Trustees.  This is a request for a Minor in Nutrition, Dietetics and Hospitality Administration, the Provost said.  The proposed Minor is intended to introduce students to the basic scientific principles of food and nutrition and hospitality administration.  The proposed minor has been developed to address a high level of interest in nutrition courses expressed by students pursuing other NIU degree programs.  No additional funding is required to implement this minor.  The university recommends that the Committee endorse this request.  Trustee Vella asked for a motion to endorse the Minor in Nutrition, Dietetics and Hospitality Administration.  Trustee Boey so moved, seconded by Student Trustee Alaniz.  The motion was approved.

Agenda Item 7.b. – Request for a New Emphasis and a New Specialization Within Degree Programs

New subdivisions of existing undergraduate programs are called emphases, Provost Legg explained, and new subdivisions for graduate programs are called specializations.

The proposed Emphasis in Manufacturing Systems within the B.S. in Industrial Engineering focuses on industrial engineering techniques in systems that produce tangible goods.  It is anticipated that creating the emphasis would attract additional students who might not otherwise attend NIU, Dr. Legg said.  No new costs would be incurred from the creation of this emphasis.

Individuals completing the Specialization in Pedagogy and Curriculum Development in Physical Education within the M.S.Ed. in Physical Education would be able to assume leadership roles in pedagogy and curriculum development in physical education and related fields, the Provost explained.  The creation of a specialization would facilitate students’ employment within the discipline.  No new costs would be incurred from the creation of this specialization.  The university recommends that the Committee endorse these requests.  Trustee Adduci made a motion to endorse the Emphasis in Manufacturing Systems within the B.S. in Industrial Engineering and the Specialization in Pedagogy and Curriculum Development in Physical Education within the M.S.Ed. in Physical Education.  Trustee Boey seconded the motion.  The motion was approved.

In answer to a query from Trustee Boey, Dr. Cassidy stated that the faculty make decisions about creating these subdivisions based on interests reflected in student inquiries.  For the specialization in physical education, approximately 50 students have asked about having this specialization created so it can be noted on their transcripts to show credit for that area of expertise when they seek employment.

Our programs are also in contact with employers, she said, and many of our public school teachers and administrators have been affiliated with Northern for a long time, so we have very good communication with them.  They are very free in letting us know what their needs are.  Also, on our alumni surveys, we ask students what areas they might recommend for improvement, and the departments also have those data.

There is not a day that goes by, Trustee Vella said, that I do not read an article in the paper that talks about how inactive our youngsters are and how much more physical education is needed in our grade schools and our high schools.  A lot of public schools are cutting back on what they call “frills” and want to stay with basics – reading, writing and math.  But I really think that in the future, we are going to need this kind of training and our teachers are going to have to develop programs for kids in the classroom so that they do become more active and want lifelong physical activity. 

Agenda Item 7.c. – Request to Delete Specializations

Dr. Legg stated that the following four requests are related to restructuring rather than a complete elimination of programs.  Public university governing boards have the final authority to delete subdivisions of major programs.  The first request is for the deletion of the Specialization in Sport Management within the M.S.Ed. in Physical Education.  On July 1, 1999, the College of Education was reorganized.  As a result of the reorganization, an M.S. degree program in sport management was approved by the Illinois Board of Higher Education on June 5, 2001, which replaced the specialization.  No reduction in costs will occur with this deletion because the courses associated with this specialization are the same as those needed for the M.S. degree program in Sport Management.

There is also a request for the deletion of the Specialization in Curriculum Leadership, the Specialization in Outdoor Teacher Education and the Specialization in Secondary Education, all within the M.S.Ed. in Curriculum and Instruction.  The deletions reflect a restructuring of the M.S.Ed. degree program in Curriculum and Instruction, Dr. Legg said.  This restructuring will better serve students by increasing the program’s ability to meet the professional development needs of teachers and school districts and to prepare teachers for national board certification.  The restructuring will enable the program to be more flexible in assigning faculty to teach high‑demand courses more frequently or to offer these courses in more locations.  No reduction in costs will occur with the deletion of these specializations because resources will still be needed to offer the courses necessary for students to complete the M.S.Ed. degree program in a timely manner.  The university recommends that the Committee endorse this request.

Chair Vella asked for a motion to endorse the deletion of the Specialization in Sport Management within the M.S.Ed. in Physical Education and the Specializations in Curriculum Leadership, Outdoor Teacher Education and Secondary Education within the M.S.Ed. in Curriculum and Instruction.  Trustee Boey so moved, seconded by Trustee Adduci.  The motion was approved.

Agenda Item 7.d. – Appointment of the Dean of the College of Education

The next item involves a request for official approval for the appointment of the dean of the College of Education, Dr. Legg said.  After a national search, Dr. Christine Sorensen has been selected for appointment as Dean of the College of Education.  She is a tenured associate professor who has served as Acting Dean since August 2001.  In fact, he said, it was my first appointment on arrival here.  Previously Dr. Sorenson held positions in the college as Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, Assistant Chair of the Department of Leadership in Educational and Sport Organizations, and Assistant Chair of the Department of Curriculum and Instruction.  Prior to coming to NIU, she held several academic positions in Iowa.  Dr. Sorensen received her Ph.D. and M.S. in Professional Studies in Education and Higher Education at Iowa State and her B.A. in Speech Communication at the University of Houston in Texas.

Dr. Sorensen is involved in numerous professional organizations and has participated in many departmental, college and university committees, Dr. Legg stated.  She has served as grant reviewer for the U.S. Department of Education, Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education, called FIPSE; as principal investigator and co‑principal investigator on a number of contracts and grants; and as lead evaluation specialist for a variety of funded projects.  She received research awards from Iowa State University including one in the field of distance education.  Dr. Sorensen is an active scholar who has presented more than sixty papers at regional, state, national and international professional conferences.  Your approval for her appointment is requested with great enthusiasm, the Provost said.  Trustee Boey so moved, seconded by Trustee Adduci.  The motion was approved.

I have just begun, only in the past year, to really know a little bit about Dr. Sorenson, Trustee Boey said, and am extremely pleased with the way she conducted her meetings with me and others.  I certainly come away with the feeling that she is, among other things, a specialist in using technology in classroom instruction.  But, it is a well‑deserved recognition, he said, and welcome to the official family of the deanship.

Congratulations to Dr. Sorenson, Trustee Siegel said.  When we approved Dean Thurman several years ago, the Board committee discussed with Dean Thurman the fact that NIU had once been “it” in education in the state of Illinois; that every superintendent, that every principal, that every administrator in the K‑12 schools knew who NIU was and had a preference for NIU graduates and how we had lost some ground in those relationships; and how that needed to be expanded and reestablished to bring us back into a position of prominence.  In addition, there was a discussion at that time about pursuing and graduating more minority teachers from our programs.  I would ask that Dean Sorenson find a copy of those minutes from the Board meeting and take a look at that, he said, because those are issues that I believe were not addressed over the last few years and do need to be addressed by the university as far as reestablishing Northern’s predominance in education in the state of Illinois.

First, Dr. Sorenson said, I would like to say that I am honored to have been selected by the search committee to lead the College of Education.  I believe we do have a wonderful College of Education, and we have excellent faculty.  We are very much aware of the issues that Myron has just brought up.  I can tell you that we are committed to expanding our service to the region.  I think if you look at what we have done this past year, you will see that already.  We are currently serving graduate students in our programs at more than 30 off‑campus locations.  We have also begun to offer degree completion programs for the undergraduate degrees off campus – one is currently underway in Elgin, and we are beginning another one next year in Rock Valley.  So we are committed to expanding our presence in the region, which will increase our visibility.  We also are very aware of the need to improve our image, and that also has been a focus this year in our college.  We have identified some areas which we are going to pursue as focus areas, one of which is partnerships with K‑12 schools, and the other is integrating technology in education at the K‑12 level as well as the higher education level.  We have been consistent in that message with school districts.  I have called meetings with our superintendents and with our partnership schools.  We just completed a meeting for the superintendents of the regional offices of education, which was very well attended.  We are striving to improve our relationships with those in the field.

We have identified and will unveil for the fall a new slogan for the college which we think will help us and will tell you where we are going in terms of our direction as well, Dean Sorenson said.  We also have a new logo, which I think Trustee Boey saw at our event in Chicago.  And, hopefully, the rest of you will be seeing it frequently as well, because we want people to recognize the College of Education, Northern Illinois University.  But the new slogan is called “Shaping the Future with PRIDE.”  And PRIDE stands for Partnerships, Research‑Based Practices, Innovation (including innovations in technology), Diversity and Evaluation.  Diversity is, again, one of the key areas we are focusing on.  I have attended a couple of conferences this summer, she said, and I have worked with LeRoy Pernell, who is Chair of the Presidential Commission of the State of Minorities, on some ideas.  We are going to focus the new Morgridge Chair on the issue of diversity.  I also have worked with Gilletta Patrick in our Office of Instructional Assistance, who has a role in recruitment and retention, and she is beginning to help us organize Future Teacher clubs in Chicago and in some of the suburban areas that serve high minority populations, because our believe is that in order to recruit those teachers, we have to start prior to their senior year in high school.  I hope that gives you a sense of what I have targeted for the future and where I intend to work over the next several years in the College of Education, Dean Sorenson concluded.  Trustee Siegel thanked Dr. Sorenson for her report and said he hoped she would return next June to report back to the Board on her accomplishments in these regards.  He also asked her to comment on plans for dealing with the alternative certification programs.

We in the college feel that we have been doing alternative certification for a very long time, Dean Sorenson said.  We have been doing certification for people who have bachelor’s degrees in other areas for years through our master’s degrees with certification.  We provide those master’s with certification in a multitude of areas, including special education, early childhood, elementary education, physical education and health education.  The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences has approved a plan using Senate Bill 329 to allow alternative certification for teachers.  Dr. Wheeler is working with us to extend that plan to encompass all of the programs within the College of Education.  That allows people who are pursuing a master’s degree with certification to be in a classroom and to be paid during the time that they are working on the master’s degree.  So that is the direction that we are going with alternative certification.  We have tremendous demand for education programs, the dean said, and we are doing our best to meet that.  But we actually have more students than we can accommodate in the alternative certification as well as the regular programs.

Let me add my strong support, President Peters said.  Provost Legg and his committee ran a very thorough national search.  I had the pleasure of interviewing the finalists and then Provost Legg reviewed with me the evaluations and his judgments, which I readily concurred with.  Dean Sorenson was the clear choice.  There is no doubt that continuing in the next few years a high state priority will be the preparation of teachers and the improvement of our schools.  Much of the burden, whether it is appropriate or not, is falling upon colleges of education as well as units like NIU’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, which also prepares teachers.  I have been in many meetings, and Christine has been called upon to appear and be involved at state level fora and even to appear before the Senate Appropriations Committee.   She has quickly accounted for herself very well and has become a leader in this area.  That really is, for me, a very important aspect of what Trustee Siegel was talking about.

On a more personal note, the President said, I was an interim dean at one time and then became dean of the college.  So I know personally how difficult it is to be an interim dean, because one is never sure how one should comport oneself and how aggressive one should be in decision making – in other words, in doing the right thing.  I have been very pleased to observe that Christine has done the right thing and has done some hard things in the college, and yet, has emerged with such strong support from within the college.  She has accounted for herself very well.  And I am pleased to say that you go into this deanship with a lot of support, he said to Dean Sorenson, and a mandate, to take us back to preeminence in Illinois.

I would also like to welcome Dr. Sorenson to the College of Education, Trustee Adduci said, and echo Trustee Siegel’s comments regarding the college.  I too am interested in seeing the progress of our highly regarded College of Education.

One last thing, Trustee Siegel said, I want to compliment Chris on her performance at the Senate Appropriations hearing.  As she probably saw from that meeting, there is a challenge for our College of Education, and it is going to call on the public colleges of education to prepare the teachers who are necessary to attract qualified university students.  It is a big challenge, he told the dean, and we look forward to you making some big progress for us in the next few years.

I would just like to make one other comment, Provost Legg said.  Chris said that the committee selected her.  It was the most thorough search that I have ever conducted, and I have conducted a lot of searches.  It was the most organized in terms of input that I have ever seen.  I was very pleased that NIU has such a good system for setting up their committees and running their searches.  I reviewed over 70 responses in writing.  It took me a long time to read all of them.  And overwhelmingly, with enthusiasm, they endorsed the appointment of Dr. Sorenson.  And I can say without any hesitation, it was not just the committee, it was a whole bunch of people who came in and said this is the person we would like to have.  I guess we have almost overkilled on this issue.  But you cannot really overkill on an issue as strong as the one about our leading college – the college on which this university was founded.  I personally wish you the best, Chris, the Provost said.  But it will be a team effort, I know, with all of us working together across the colleges and across the university.

Agenda Item 7.e. – Request to Move Submission of Tenure and Promotion Recommendations to the Board of Trustees from March to the June Board Meeting

This is a request to move submission of the tenure and promotion recommendations to the Board of Trustees from March to the June Board Meeting, Provost Legg said.  The current due date for college decisions on tenure and promotion to be received by the Provost’s Office is the beginning of November.  It is proposed to move the deadline to the beginning of December.  This would result in the final stage of the process, appeals hearings, ending at the beginning of April.  Therefore, the Board of Trustees would receive the tenure and promotion recommendations at the June meeting instead of the March meeting.  The change in due dates would permit adequate time for gathering the material needed to support the recommendations made, in particular, the external evaluations.  Moving the deadline for tenure and promotion decisions ahead one month will also provide external reviewers the opportunity to review the most up‑to‑date material on the candidates for tenure and promotion.  The request for this change came from the deans and is supported by the chairs, the Provost said.  The proposal was reviewed and approved by the University Council Personnel Committee, the committee that reviews the tenure and promotion recommendations.  President Peters supports this request.  The University recommends that submission time for tenure and promotion recommendations to the Board of Trustees be moved from March to the June Board Meeting and asks the President to forward this by means of the President’s Report to the Board of Trustees at its June 20 meeting.  Chair Vella asked for such a recommendation.  Trustee Boey so moved, seconded by Trustee Adduci. The motion was approved.

Agenda Item 7.f. – North Central Association Accreditation

It is time for the North Central Association Accreditation process to begin, Provost Legg said.  Northern Illinois University has been continuously accredited by the North Central Association (NCA) of Colleges and Schools, one of the six regional accrediting bodies of institutions of higher learning in the United States, since 1915.  The NCA’s accreditation review of colleges and universities occurs on a 10‑year cycle, and NIU was last reaccredited in 1994.  The university has begun its preparation for the next accreditation site visit by the consultant‑evaluators of the Higher Learning Commission of the NCA in February 2004.

Agenda Item 7.g. – 2002 Faculty Emeritus Recognition

Universities have a long tradition of granting emeritus status to faculty who retire in good standing.  Northern Illinois University created a regular process for the identification of retirees for whom the emeritus designation is appropriate, the Provost explained.  A list of ranked faculty who have announced or finalized retirements as of May 29, is prepared annually by Human Resource Services and reviewed by the Provost for presentation to the Board of Trustees.  This item informed the Board of Trustees of the retired faculty members designated as emeritus, based on the retirement dates announced as of May 29, 2002.  The faculty being granted emeritus status, with their departments, ranks and any special status and dates of retirement was provided in the meeting report.

Agenda Item 7.h. – 2001‑2002 Program Review Summary

The programs reviewed in the 2001‑2002 cycle are listed in your agenda book for your consideration as well as review, Provost Legg said.  It is a somewhat concise summary of what these reviews have produced.  The university goes through this process in a cycle every eight years for all the programs on campus.

We really appreciate the fact that you are doing all this planning, looking ahead, looking back and conducting surveys with our alumni, Chair Vella said, to make sure that we are relevant always and in tune with what is going on.  Because, as we know, we are living in an age of change and probably will continue to do so.  And, we really appreciate that you continue that effort.  These are things that impact some of the reasons why we eliminate programs, specializations and emphases.

NEXT MEETING DATE

Chair Vella announced that the next meeting would probably be in September and members will be notified.

ADJOURNMENT

There being no Other Matters, Chair Vella asked for a motion to adjourn.  Student Trustee Adduci so moved, seconded by Trustee Boey.  The motion was approved.  The meeting was adjourned at 9:45 a.m.

Respectfully submitted,

Sharon M. Mimms

Recording Secretary