Minutes of the

NIU Board of Trustees

ACADEMIC AFFAIRS, STUDENT AFFAIRS

AND PERSONNEL COMMITTEE

September 4, 2003

The meeting was called to order by Chair Catherine Adduci at approximately 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 and Barbara Giorgi Vella, Student Trustee Kevin Miller and Chair Catherine Adduci.  Also present were Committee Liaison Provost 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 Kenneth Davidson.

Chair Adduci announced that Agenda Item 7.d. had been withdrawn from the agenda and asked for a motion to approve the revised agenda.  Trustee Vella made a motion to approve the agenda as amended, seconded by Trustee Boey.  The motion was approved.

It was moved by Trustee Vella and seconded by Trustee Boey to approve the minutes of the June 5, 2003 meeting.  The motion was approved.

On today’s agenda, we have three items that will be presented for action and seven information items.  The action items include a collective bargaining agreement; a request for degree authority at a regional site; a transfer of the tenure and tenure‑track location of three faculty members – items a., b. and c.  The seven information items include two program issues, the programmatic budget request for Fiscal Year 2005, the College of Education reorganization summary requested at the last meeting, and then the 2003 results report items, e., g., and h.  I also call your attention to information item 7.f., which recognizes those faculty who are granted emeritus status as a result of having retired from the university in good standing.  Item 7.i. identifies faculty and staff who are recipients of Professional Excellence Awards.  It is a pleasure to recognize those individuals who provide the margin of excellence that made NIU a peer among peers.  The recipients of the awards have been invited to join us for lunch today.

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 Agreement

Provost Legg asked Dr. Steve Cunningham, Associate Vice President-Administration and Human Resources to give the report.  This agreement authorizes salary increases for NIU’s approximately 150 instructors, Dr. Cunningham said.  Increments would not have been granted this year pursuant to the bargaining agreement; however, the university made the decision to recommend these increases for the bargaining unit consistent with increment guidelines in order to maintain the progress we have made with respect to the competitive status of instructor salaries at NIU.

We decided that even though this is outside the scope of the collective bargaining agreement because we are base‑appropriated dollars, President Peters said, the general revenue funds would increase. Because we were using other sources of funds for salary increases, we wanted our instructors to have that as well.  They previously had a five‑year agreement with very good terms, Dr. Cunningham said, and we want to try to maintain the momentum we have achieved with respect to their salaries.  Trustees Boey and Vella indicated that they both fully supported these increases.

Chair Adduci asked for a motion to endorse the University Professionals of Illinois (AFT, IFT, and AFL‑CIO), Local 4100, collective bargaining agreement.  Student Trustee Miller so moved, seconded by Trustee Boey. The motion was approved.

Agenda Item 7.b. – Request for Degree Authority at a Regional Site

Provost Legg asked Dr. Virginia Cassidy, Associate Vice President for Academic Planning and Development, to present this item.

Our School of Nursing has been involved in discussions with several hospitals in Lake County that are interested in having Northern deliver the nursing program for their registered nurses on site, Dr. Cassidy stated, and the School of Nursing has agreed to do that at Good Shepherd Hospital in Barrington.  Therefore, it is necessary for the university to request degree‑granting authority in Region 1, the North Suburban Region, which is primarily Lake County.  The degree program is the same one that is offered on campus and at other regional sites for registered nurses.  The details of the request are outlined in the Board item.  Dr. Cassidy said that enrollments in this program are projected at approximately 30 nurses in the first cohort.  The program will take five semesters – fall, spring, summer and fall and spring of the following year – and then that group should graduate.  It is anticipated that about 25 of those nurses will complete the program within that five‑semester time frame.

We request that the Committee endorse the request to deliver this program for registered nurses in Region 1 and ask that the President forward it by means of his report to the Board of Trustees for approval at its September 18 meeting.

I am fully in support of it, Trustee Boey said, understanding the need for nurses in the nursing shortage.  There is tremendous pressure on both Kishwaukee College and Knox College.  The hospital is forever begging for nurses, and I assume it is the same situation at other hospitals as well.  The other piece of that is the fact that nurses who have a baccalaureate degree have additional skills that they can bring to the work setting, Dr. Cassidy said.  Given the fact that managed care has cut back on the number of nurses providing care for patients, we need nurses with more advanced skills and health assessment who can coordinate the care that is provided by other caregivers.

In answer to a question from Trustee Vella, Dr. Cassidy said that the program takes five semesters to complete, and it is anticipated that a new group will be starting every fall.

Chair Adduci asked for a motion to approve the nursing program for registered nurses at Good Shepherd Hospital in Barrington.  Trustee Boey so moved, seconded by Trustee Vella.  The motion was approved.

Agenda Item 7.c. – Transfer of Tenure and Tenure‑Track Location

Every year we perform program reviews of our various academic units, Provost Legg said.  During this cycle, we reviewed two programs dealing with health education.  We identified a considerable amount of overlap between the health education program in the College of Education and the community health program in the College of Health and Human Sciences.  As a result of this, we decided to investigate the possibility of combining the delivery of these two academic programs to increase efficiency.  A task force made up of faculty from both of the units was formed, and they ultimately came up with a recommendation that we move the health education program into the College of Health and Human Sciences.  The deans had a long discussion with the task force, the Provost and Dr. Cassidy.  After much deliberation, we were able to come to a compromise that allowed us to do this effectively.  As part of this process, we have to transfer three faculty from the College of Education into the College of Health and Human Sciences.  This requires the approval of the Board of Trustees.  Therefore, the university requests that the Committee endorse the university’s request to transfer the tenure and tenure‑track location of these faculty in the Department of Counseling, Adult and Health Education in the College of Education to the School of Allied Health Professions in the College of Health and Human Sciences and forward them by means of the President’s Report to the Board of Trustees for approval at its September 18 meeting.  Trustee Adduci asked for such a motion.  Trustee Vella so moved, seconded by Trustee Boey.  The motion was approved.

Agenda Item 7.d. – [Item Withdrawn]

Agenda Item 7.e. – Fiscal Year 2005 Programmatic Budget Requests

We are asked annually by the IBHE to submit new initiatives under a program budget request format that we follow each year, Provost Legg stated.  At this particular meeting each year, we present to you for your information, the initiatives that we consider of highest priority for funding.  It is the mechanism that is used for increasing the university budget, aside from salary increases.  It is a little ironic that we continue to do this as we are taxed by the state to reduce our budgets, but it is an exercise that is valuable because we get a chance to evaluate what we are doing, and we are prepared for that wonderful day, someday, when the state will decide to start increasing our budget.

Agenda Item 7.f. – 2002‑2003 Faculty Emeritus Recognition

Also, at this time of year, Provost Legg said, we present for your review and information the faculty who  have retired during this year’s cycle.  All the faculty who retire in good standing are given the title of emeritus as they leave the university, and the faculty in that category is listed for your information.

President Peters inquired what the next five years looked like in terms of faculty who are eligible to retire or are at that point in their career where retirement may be an option.  We have looked at this with respect to different SURS initiatives, Dr. Cunningham said.  NIU has a large number of faculty over age 55 who have enough years to retire.  That is probably because NIU grew a lot in the ‘70s and much of the faculty hiring was done at that time.  This is a rough estimate, but probably about 50 percent of our faculty is presently eligible to retire under SURS.

This is a serious policy issue for all universities right now, President Peters said.  Replenishing the professoriate should be our major goal.  Of course, we are constrained severely, as all public universities are constrained because of the 42 states having severely reduced budgets.  Replenishing the professoriate with a good mix of individuals from the junior ranks up through the senior ranks is very important, although Ivan and I always believed in replacing at the junior or assistant professor level.  We have been in a modified hiring freeze for the past two years, and every academic position is looked at.  The critical thing for this university right now is to maintain our tenure‑track base, and that is reflected in our budget priorities.  We need to add tenure‑track faculty, given the demand for the NIU education, and given the expectations and the growth of our research and graduate programs.  I do not know how we are going to get there, but we are in the process now of thinking that through as is every university in the country.  The demand is there.  The resources are not.  So what you are seeing across the country is tenure‑track position after tenure‑track position not being filled or being filled with part‑time or temporary people.  We are trying to hold back on that here, but, at the same time, we have a tremendous instructional burden.  So, I just wanted to indicate to the Committee that this is something that is going to get our highest attention in the next few years.

In reply to a query from Trustee Boey, Dr. Cunningham stated that approximately 30 or 40 faculty probably retire per year.  The trend was actually slowed by the economy over the last two years.  There were a lot of retirements three years ago.  In retirement planning, people are telling us that they are really uncertain about the economy right now, so that slowed retirements for the short  term.  As the President indicated, it is a problem we will have to address in the near future. 

If you will permit me for just a moment, the President said, I feel this is so important.  I have tried to do what I can to shift the debate in the state away from how can we cut our budgets to trying to get the message across to state policymakers that there is an influx of new students graduating from high schools in Illinois in the next decade who require and should have a quality postsecondary education.  At the same time, our percentage of the state budget is going down.  Our base is back to 1999, and the demand for quality public higher education product is increasing.  The state has to come up with a plan on how they can help us meet that demand.  I think that is where the debate has to shift.  But when you find yourself in a situation where the state is bleeding budgetarily, where revenue is down again, and it looks like we are going toward another deficit situation, this is not a happy picture.  The stresses and strains are on all of us – on the faculty, particularly on students and parents, and on the administration, but, I think this is a major public policy issue that needs to be addressed.  And yet, there are so many public policy issues out there that the state has to deal with – Medicare, Medicaid, investment in the infrastructure, that sort of thing.

Chair Adduci asked if there had been any questions among the university presidents on how to deal with the continuing deficit in state funding.  One path that several universities across the country have taken, President Peters said, a path that we have not chosen and really is not open to us, is to basically privatize public universities and begin to charge tuition at a rate nearing that of private institutions.  As a matter of fact, Massachusetts made this deal with the public universities.  They are going to decrease their funding, but they are autonomous and free to raise rates to what the market will bear.  I happen to think that is a bad way to go, and it breaks the public trust for what a state is supposed to do.  In terms of management techniques and the way to handle more and more students, public universities have been doing this for years.  There is not an awful lot out there that we have not tried.  At some point, the benefits and the value added that results from a quality education on a campus like ours or Urbana or Illinois State or Western Illinois or just about any public university you can name, is expensive.  There is infrastructure to support, technology keeps moving, and if we are not on the leading edge of technology, or close to it, we are dead as an educational institution.  Quality faculty are expensive and need to be supported – not just hired but supported.  People are wringing their hands.  They are worried and I am worried about the future of public higher education in this country.

There was a New York Times article recently – that I would be happy to distribute to anyone – that basically made this same point:  that states are missing a bet by jeopardizing 150 years of good investment in the great public universities.  I am going to do the best I can to make the case, and then we will work to be as efficient as we can.  But the lines are beginning to cross in all public higher education.  It is not just NIU, and it is something that is of great concern to the Trustees.

Agenda Item 7.g. – College of Education Reorganization Summary

At our last meeting, Trustee Boey inquired about how things were going on the reorganization of our College of Education.  At that point, we decided it would be worthwhile to have the dean of the College of Education come and make a presentation on what has happened on the reorganization from the beginning to the current time.

Last spring, Dean Sorenson said, I was asked to make a presentation about the changes that have occurred in the College of Education over the last few years.  So, I am here today to review for you where we were back in 1998 and where we are today.  First, I would like to make a small comment about change.

Video Tape:  {From “The Lion King”}  “Yeah, looks like the winds are changing.”  “Ah, change is good.”  “Yeah, but it’s not easy.”

We in the College of Education, Dean Sorensen said, do believe that the changes we have made have been good but certainly not easy.  Since 1998, we have gone through significant changes.  In 1999, the college underwent a major reorganization.  For most of the people in the college at the time, it was a powerful event.  There were few who remembered the last major reorganization, which occurred in the early 1970s when the college went from eight departments to four.  As a point of interest, 43 percent of our current faculty in the College of Education have been hired since the last reorganization in 1998.  When the former dean of the college, Dr. Alfonzo Thurman, presented his reorganization plan to this group in 1998, he identified several goals.

In 1998, Dean Sorenson continued, the College of Education consisted of four very large departments, each with more than 25 faculty.  We referred to them as Curriculum and Instruction; Educational Psychology, Special Education and Counseling; Leadership and Educational Policy Studies; and Physical Education.  So those were the four big departments at that time.  In 1998, we essentially put all the pieces of those four departments into a mix, and after a bit of scrambling up, they came out reconfigured into seven departments.  Now, these departments as they were originally named are listed to the left on the screen that you see before you, but during 1999 and 2000, we actually went through some renaming, and we renamed three of them.  The current names you will see now to the right with the exception of Educational Psychology and Foundations, which we just recently renamed this past year.

A significant portion of the Department of Physical Education remained intact, with two smaller areas, health and sport management, shifted to two other departments.  In some cases, entire programs were moved intact and in others, various components of degree programs – the master’s and the doctorate – those faculty were actually separated into three separate departments.  And the deaf education portion of the Special Education degree was actually in a different department than the rest of the Special Education program.

At the end of the initial reorganization process in 1999, the college had seven departments, most of which, with the exception of the Department of Kinesiology and Physical Education, combined program areas from two or three of the previous four departments.  Since 1999, however, the college has initiated other structural changes.  From 2000 until 2003, these changes have affected every department, except Educational Technology, Research and Assessment.  We have, essentially, shaken things up again and the pieces have been rearranged.  We refer to this process as the refinement process.  And at the end of the process, as of fall 2003, we have now gone from seven departments to six.  I would like to review for you, briefly, by department, what some of the changes have been over these years, both structural and programmatic.

Counseling, Adult and Health Education is the first department.  We have moved the Certificate of Graduate Study in Higher Education to this department along with several higher education courses from other departments.  We renamed both the master’s and the doctoral degrees in adult continuing education, Adult and Higher Education, and they will be seeking doctoral authority to deliver their program in Chicago later this year.

As of this summer, the health education program, as Ivan mentioned earlier, that was in the department, was moved to the College of Health and Human Sciences.  That was a result of program review and programs to reduce overlap in the university.  With the move of the health program, the department plans to require a change in department name this fall to Counseling, Adult and Higher Education, which works quite well with our current designator.  I would also like to note the expanding international effort, the department, which now has agreements with at least half a dozen higher education entities in other countries, including Finland, China, Brazil and South Korea.

Educational Technology, Research and Assessment is the second department.  Following reorganization in 1999, the department was granted a new degree, a Master of Science in Research and Evaluation, approved for delivery both on and off campus.  The department also moved to get degree authority for the instructional technology doctorate in Chicago.  We currently have a cohort of 23 students in Chicago, nearly all minority candidates, pursuing that doctoral degree, which is NIU’s first totally off‑campus doctoral program.

Department faculty are more integrally involved in developing teacher education curricula, and both assessment and technology faculty served as part of an interdepartmental design team to develop the new elementary education program, the college’s largest undergraduate program.  The department has also invested resources in developing five new high‑technology classrooms, which we invite you to come and see sometime, and is also working to develop a new School Technology Specialist Certificate.

Kinesiology and Physical Education is the third department.  Since the reorganization, the B.S. in Physical Education that was for those interested in nonteaching careers has changed to a B.S. in Kinesiology, more clearly defining the science focus of that degree. The interdisciplinary dance program with the College of Visual and Performing Arts has been dissolved with the department now focusing on preparing dance teachers for schools. Early in the reorganization, a new degree in sport management was established in the college.  Like the degree in research and evaluation, the program in sport management is a Master of Science degree rather than a Master of Science in Education degree. This program, sport management, was formerly in the Department of Leadership in Education and Sport Organizations and has now been moved to the Department of Kinesiology and Physical Education, which is also pursuing national accreditation for its athletic training program.

Leadership, Educational Psychology and Foundations, the fourth department, was, until recently, the Department of Educational Psychology and Foundations.  This summer, the educational administration programs and the school business management program were transferred and the department name was changed. This change enables better collaboration among faculty with expertise in policy studies, learning theory, and leadership.  The department has also become more involved in the development of undergraduate programming, with both educational psychology and foundations faculty participating in the design team for the new elementary education program and volunteering their faculty to supervise early clinical experiences for elementary education students. Two other new program efforts underway include the development of a new educational leadership curriculum, which will pilot its program in Crystal Lake this fall with plans to continue that pilot program in Chicago in the spring.  We also have a new collaborative effort with Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy (IMSA) to develop a certificate of graduate study in problem-based learning, targeted to teacher professional development.  We actually have eight teachers enrolled in a class that will be taught at IMSA this fall.

Leadership in Educational and Sport Organizations was a department in the college until this summer.  This department originally included faculty from curriculum and supervision, educational administration, school business management, and sport management.  During the first year following reorganization, the department received approval for a new degree, the M.S. in sport management. The second year after reorganization, the curriculum and supervision program was renamed curriculum leadership and then moved to the Department of Teaching and Learning, reuniting several components of the master’s and doctoral curriculum and instruction degrees.  This July the educational administration and school business management programs became part of the Department of Leadership in Educational Psychology and Foundations, the degree in sport management was transferred to the Department of  Kinesiology and Physical Education, and the entire Department of Leadership in Educational and Sport  Organizations was disbanded.

Literacy Education, our fifth current department, has renamed its reading programs at both the master’s and doctoral levels to degrees in literacy education to better serve its clients.  Under the new literacy education programs, there are tracks for students to pursue specialized interests in English as a second language (ESL) and bilingual instruction, and children’s literature, as well as in reading.  A decision was made to eliminate the emphasis in deaf education and shift resources to the ESL/bilingual area.  The department literally shares responsibility for the elementary education program (both at the undergraduate and graduate levels) with the Department of Teaching and Learning. Together they have greatly expanded college programming to serve ESL/bilingual needs, particularly among the Latino population.  We offer an undergraduate degree‑completion program at Elgin Community College that allows students to achieve their elementary teaching certification with ESL/bilingual approval.  We also currently have more than a dozen cohorts of students, about 30 per cohort, primarily Latino, taking coursework to receive a master’s in elementary education with ESL/bilingual approval.  These cohorts are serving needs in school districts in Aurora, Rockford, Chicago, Elgin, Cicero and more.  They are there to help bilingual professionals teaching on provisional credentials to achieve full certification to be considered highly qualified teachers under the new federal No Child Left Behind regulations.

Finally, our sixth and largest department is Teaching and Learning.  As mentioned earlier, in 2001, the curriculum leadership program moved to this department.  Later, the three curriculum and instruction specializations at the master’s level (curriculum leadership, secondary education and outdoor teacher education) merged to become a single program without specializations and was refocused to serve as a professional development degree marketed to school districts and delivered almost exclusively off campus.  The faculty also developed a certificate of graduate study in advanced teaching practices designed to help teachers achieve certification through the National Board of Professional Teaching Standards and become master teachers.  The curriculum and instruction faculty is currently looking at revamping the doctoral program.  The reorganization has definitely led to better collaboration between the special education and elementary education faculty – an important development given the change in the field to placing more students in inclusive classroom settings.  Students in elementary and special education now have opportunities for shared clinical placements and they take classes together.  The special education faculty have completely revamped their undergraduate program to meet state requirements in special education, changing from categorical certifications to a Learning Behavior Specialist I.  Faculty are now working to develop curricula for the state’s Learning Behavior Specialist II categories.  The interdisciplinary early childhood studies program saw a change with two tracks developed – one in the College of Health and Human Sciences that provides the early childhood certification alone and one in the College of Education that provides the early childhood certification with a special education approval.  This was also largely the result of placing early childhood and special education faculty into the same department.  The department has invested in building a new social sciences laboratory and has been a leader in the state in working with community colleges.  We offer a baccalaureate degree‑completion program in elementary education at Rock Valley College (in addition to the Elgin program) and the faculty are working to develop an associate of arts in teaching in special education in collaboration with Rock Valley.  Curricula in all undergraduate programs in the department have been revised to recognize the reality that more than 60 percent of the department’s undergraduate majors began their academic career at a community college.

There have been many changes in the college since 1999, so I will take just a moment to recap the structural ones that I have just mentioned so you can more clearly see where the pieces have now landed. Dean Sorensen provided an overview of all the major changes she outlined earlier, and concluded by saying that the College of Education today is made up of six departments.  We actually have three larger departments, each with more than 20 faculty, and three smaller departments, with each less than 20 faculty.

There are a few other comments I would like to make about changes in the College of Education before I close.  We are very proud of our success in the university’s NCATE accreditation visit, which occurred in 2001.  Our programs were some of the first to go through review under the new NCATE 2000 standards.  Since the reorganization, all of our undergraduate curricula in the college have been revised.  We have expanded our school‑university partnership efforts and hired a new endowed professor, Dr. Sharon Smaldino, to lead the partnership efforts.  We have involved more faculty from across the college in working in schools.  We now have formal partnerships with eight school districts and commitments from Chicago and Rockford to develop partnership schools in those districts.  We have improved our collaboration with other colleges on campus, and the College of Education and the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences have developed a much closer working relationship.  We have expanded our technology initiatives, working to assure that all faculty have technology skills – going so far as to require all new faculty to take a semester‑long course on integrating technology into teaching.  We are also raising private funding to build a state‑of‑the‑art assistive technology laboratory, the first of its kind in northern Illinois.  We now not only offer most of our master’s programs off campus, but we are moving to take undergraduate degree completion programs and doctoral programs off campus.  In spring 2003, the college offered 169 courses at 55 different off‑campus locations across northern Illinois. We have also worked to address issues of diversity.  We have increased the numbers of minority students particularly in our master’s and doctoral programs, particularly among African-American and Latino populations.  In fact, in the July issue of Black Issues In Higher Education, NIU was ranked as one of the top five institutions in the country in the production of African-American doctoral students, and number one among public institutions.  All but one of NIU’s African‑American doctoral graduates were from the College of Education.  We are also ranked in the top 50 nationally in Latino graduates of master’s programs, and we expect that ranking to rise as the Latino students in our ESL/bilingual programs complete their studies.  We are also diversifying our faculty.  Among our 16 new faculty hires for this year, seven are from underrepresented groups.  Four of our six departments now have at least 20 percent of their faculty from underrepresented groups.  We have also been serving ever more students with declining resources.  The college has seen steady increases in enrollments in the last five years.  In order to support the needs of the students and to maintain our faculty resources, we have focused on reducing administrative costs – eliminating an associate dean position, eliminating assistant chair positions, eliminating ten support or director positions and eliminating a department.  We have achieved overall savings in administrative costs of close to one‑half million dollars.  And we are continuing to look at how to operate more efficiently and still serve our students with quality academic programs.  Not all of these changes in the college are the direct result of reorganization; but I do believe the reorganization pushed the college to change in many ways.  It created, if you will, an environment of chaos, which is often necessary for change.  Much of the credit, however, for what has happened in the last few years in the college I would give to our outstanding department chairs and our dedicated faculty and staff in the college.

So, in the end, did the reorganization achieve its goals?  I would say, now, that every department has a strong program that prepares educators for schools.  Every department has a connection to educator preparation, and five of the six have deep commitments to initial teacher preparation.  Communication has improved in the college, and I think there is a sense that layers have been reduced.  And all of our undergraduate curricula, and many of our graduate programs, have been revised.

The teacher education faculty are still dispersed throughout the college; but I believe there is more communication across departments now.  Some graduate programs, but not all, are better aligned and more recognizable in the department names.  But some questions do remain about how some programs are organized and where they are housed, and we will likely deal with these question in the future.

A question that was asked last spring was, “Are you done changing yet?”  I can only say that the winds of change are still blowing across the college – change is still in the air.  And, actually, I think that is a good thing.  It keeps us on our toes, and it helps us better be able to adapt to changing circumstances.  In the end, I think the only certainty in life, as well as in the College of Education, is that change is constant.  Going back to the “Lion King” slide, change is good, even when it is difficult.

I have to admit to you, Dr. Sorenson, that though we have discussed this, Trustee Boey said, I am still overwhelmed by the changes.  In private industry, there is always a rule of thumb we are very careful about:  in any reorganization, make sure the players know where they fit in.  My only concern is being sure that the players know where they are as you make the changes, because if they do not know where they are in private industry, that is one sure way to cause a problem in efficiency.  I am sure you have done a very good job of that.  But, for my sake, and maybe for some of my fellow Trustees, could you give us a single‑page, simplified organization chart reflecting the current situation. 

That was extremely effective, Chair Adduci said, thank you.  I have a little interest in early childhood development, and I was really pleased to see that you do a lot of collaboration with other colleges and partnerships.

I want to commend Dean Sorenson and her staff for this reorganization of the College of Education, Dr. Peters said.  There is tremendous responsibility at Northern Illinois University and the College of Education to train teachers, to do cutting edge research in education, to provide leadership in the state.  That has been our role for over a hundred years.  And I think the dean and the faculty have done a tremendous job in a short time, and I want to commend them on that.

When I was employed at a former university there was a presentation like this from the dean of the College of Education, and one of the Trustees wrote what at that time I thought was a very good question.  And that is, is the new organization understandable to the education community?  Is it understandable internally and in the College of Education academic profession?  Are these changes and all these acronyms understandable?  I would say for the most part, yes, Dean Sorenson replied.  We still have a couple of areas that we are looking at where the faculty believes we may need to look a little more closely.  However, I would say in general that now the departments are very recognizable, and most of their names pretty accurately identify the programs within the departments, with the exception being the Department of Teaching and Learning, which is sort of a conglomeration of many of the teacher preparation areas.  But I think that when people look at the titles of the new departments now, they can pretty clearly see where programs are located.

The process of change is always a continual process and there will always be tweaking, President Peters said, but is this a pretty standard set of departments now and names that will have some longevity?  Yes, Dr. Sorenson said, once we get the counseling, adult and higher education name, which will be coming through this fall.  They should stand for some time.  Congratulations, again, the President said.  It is a job well done.

Agenda Item 7.h. – Fiscal Year 2003 University Results Report

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

Agenda Item 7.j. – Fiscal Year 2003 External Funding for Research, Public Service and Instructional Projects

Provost Legg asked Dr. Rathindra Bose, the new Vice President for Research and Dean of the Graduate School, to give this report.  It is my distinct pleasure to report to you the external funding for Northern Illinois University, Dr. Bose said.  In your report books under Item 7.j. are the annual reports of total funding compared with the previous years, funding by college, funding by agencies, and the types of awards we received.

I felt that I should point out some of the highlights for this year’s activities and perhaps some of the other items of interest to you that did not appear in our fiscal report, Dr. Bose said.  I must acknowledge the help of Linda Schwarz, Director of Sponsored Programs, and her distinguished colleagues who work hard to prepare our faculty for getting more and more external funding.  Total funding for Fiscal Year 2003 was $45.5 million.  That was $400,000 less than Fiscal Year 2002.  This $400,000 reduction is not a real reduction, based on the fact that we received $2 million less in appropriations earmark funding this year compared to Fiscal Year 2002.  This appropriation funding is a source of funding that has been coming to NIU only for the last few years under the leadership of President Peters, and we have a high‑energy particle in Kathy Buettner.  We hope to see that grow in the future, and I have been working with her and with President Peters to make some significant contribution in that area.

The percent yield of our proposals is better than national norm.  Looking at the national norm from a variety of agencies, every fifth or sixth proposal submitted is funded.  We requested approximately $120 million funding and came out with $45 million.  That is an enormous success.

In regard to funding sources, federal awards were about 42 percent of our total awards, and then we have the state awards, corporate awards and other awards.  The other awards category is mostly Pell Grants, which are allocated by the U.S. Department of Education.  The distribution of funding by colleges is a fairly typical trend for major research public universities.  The College of Engineering should be getting more funding compared to our peers, and that is something our acting dean is working on.  Of the total funding, 52 percent came from federal and 19 percent from state.  The corporate and other sources are shown in a pie chart.

My guess is that 19 percent from state is pretty high, President Peters said, because Illinois has done a pretty good job of putting research dollars into its universities.  That is a plus here in Illinois.

It is ranked twelfth or thirteen in the nation in terms of investing dollars, Dr. Bose said, especially for research grants.  Texas is the highest one, and in many of the programs in Texas institutions, faculty members can double up their high‑powered research for the past two or three years without even asking for federal help.  Then, once they are ready, they can bring in much more grant money. 

I mainly wanted to take a couple more minutes of your time to show you some of the things that are not in this report, Dr. Bose said.  Last July, Black Issues of Higher Education published the minority doctorates coming from all major United States institution.  In terms of percentage, Illinois was ranked number 2 in the nation in African‑American doctorates and the top five are shown in the chart.

A comparison to the other state institutions in Illinois showed that NIU is producing 16 percent compared to some of the other institutions, Dr. Bose said, including the University of Illinois.  The number of doctoral degrees we have awarded to African‑ Americans is 20.  Dr. Sorensen mentioned that the program in the Department of Education, Technology, Research is helping us.  Tuition waivers are offered through the Graduate School to most of these candidates so they can come back to graduate education and finish their Ph.D. degrees.  Not very many universities are doing that.  The point I wanted to emphasize is that NIU is committed to these diversity issues under President Peters’ and Provost Legg’s leadership, and this is an example of how we can move forward utilizing minimum resources and having a maximum output from the graduate education.

In total minority doctorates, not just African-American, Dr. Bose reported, we also rank very high.  Again, I made the comparison among the nonminority public institutions, and NIU ranks number nine.  And I have excluded two institutions that produce only two to five Ph.D.s.  These institutions produce ten or more Ph.D.s in all fields.

If we are going to make a meaningful contribution to this society and find alternate source of revenues, Dr. Bose said, we need to look into our technology transfer.  Many universities brought in $5,200 million in revenues from technology transfer, but we have not invested resources in that particular area.  Despite that, the success here is quite noticeable.  If you look at the total patents we are managing here, it is somewhere around 45, including 16 provisional patents.  I came from Kent State University where the liquid crystal display was invented.  The computer screens you see, the television screens you see, were the invention of Kent State University.  There we managed over 400 patents, and eleven spin‑off companies were generated.  What my future goal would be is to spend more time as the vice president for research on technology transfer and commercialization activities that give you the societal connection.  What you do in these areas brings revenue to the university to help with faculty research in the applied areas.

President Peters mentioned this is the opportune time for hiring new faculty.  Not very many universities are hiring at the moment, so there are highly qualified individuals looking for jobs.  If we can somehow manage the resources and target specific areas – some of the areas I just listed over here – there are enormous funding opportunities. There must not be any disconnect between these funding opportunities and our academic programs, so, we need to find out ways of hiring new faculty in these areas that help graduate and undergraduate education and also help the economic health of the university.  Multidisciplinary projects for very large grants are the ones that I have ambition to go after.  I also wanted to remind all of us that we are a doctoral research-extensive institution, and this society expects a lot from us.

I just want to jump in and say how very, very pleased I am that Ivan was able to bring Rathin here, Dr. Peters said.  In a short period of time, he has really energized a lot of the work that we are doing and added focus.  He is well‑known in the research community.  He is working well with the deans, because we have to have interdisciplinary programs in the research areas.  We have set some very ambitious goals for ourselves in external funding increases and in technology transfer, and in a few years, I believe one of the greatest success stories will be an increase in our external funding.

Agenda Item 7.k. – Higher Learning Commission Accreditation Update

Chair Adduci announced that the next Committee meeting would be announced at a later date and members will be notified.  The next full Board Meeting is scheduled for Thursday, September 18, in the Clara Sperling Sky Room.

There being no Other Matters, Chair Adduci asked for a motion to adjourn.  Trustee Vella so moved, seconded by Trustee Boey.  The motion was approved.

The meeting was adjourned at 10:17 a.m.

Respectfully submitted,

Sharon M. Mimms

Recording Secretary