Debate about job duplication was the highlight of Thursday’s Board of Regents meeting.

At the beginning of the meeting, held at Illinois State University at Normal, Regent Joe Ebbesen said a request he made at the May meeting remained unfulfilled. Ebbesen said he wanted to know which positions were duplicated between the chancellor’s office and the three Regency universities.

Regents Chancellor Roderick Groves said he thought he had fulfilled the request by providing lists of positions, responsibilities and costs in the chancellor’s office.

But, “it included everything except what I am looking for,” Ebbesen said.

“(Duplication) is a slippery concept,” Groves said. Positions at the university level might deal with the same subject matter as the chancellor’s office level, but employees have different responsibilities, Groves added.

Ebbesen said he raised the concern because it is costly to duplicate work.

“What does the chancellor’s office do with (budget data)? Take it out to dinner? And how much does this cost?” he asked.

As a state legislator from 1973 to 1984, Ebbesen unsuccessfully worked to create a separate governing board for NIU.

The Regents govern NIU, ISU and Sangamon State University in Springfield. If Ebbesen’s legislation had passed, the board possibly could have been eliminated.

Regent Carol Burns questioned whether a lack of knowledge about the Regency budget process on Ebbesen’s part was causing the dispute.

Groves said this was a possibility because Ebbesen was appointed last year and had not yet attended an introductory workshop for new Regents.

Groves and Ebbesen agreed to sit down and discuss the matter on a private basis.

The Regents also discussed the breakdown of the Fall 1991 enrollment. Regent Milton McClure said he was distressed by a lack of effort to recruit Hispanics.

NIU President John La Tourette said NIU had a 12 percent increase in the number of Hispanics enrolled this year. He also pointed to a jump of 385 Hispanic students in 1985 to 766 this year.

La Tourette attributed the increase to the leadership stabilization and increased funding for the University Resources for Latinos which took place in 1985.

However, McClure said that an increase of 370 students was still small regardless of the percentages.

In other business, the Regents also discussed a report on personnel changes at all three universities.