Correction: This piece was updated at 1:41 p.m. Friday to remove incorrect information. The Board of Trustees did not approve the university request for $118 million. The Finance Audit Complicance, Facilities and Operations Committee approved the university request for $118 million and the item will move for full approval at the next Board of Trustees meeting on Dec. 12.

DeKALB — The Board of Trustees approved the university’s request for $118 million for the 2026 fiscal year in the Finance, Audit, Compliance, Facilities and Operations Committee meeting Thursday.

The Academic Affairs, Student Affairs and Personnel Committee, Research and Innovation, Legal and Legislative Affairs Committee, and Finance Audit Compliance, Facilities and Operations Committee met Thursday.

NIU President Lisa Freeman said the university’s request for fiscal year 2026 was $118 million and was based upon the higher ED Price Index inflationary factor, which tracks the main costs in higher education.

“The basis for this request was last year’s base of $113.4 million adjusted by the 2024 higher ED Price Index inflationary factor of 4%. In addition, $2.2 million is requested to support new initiatives specified in the item as discussed earlier. These include a summer bridge program, expanded supplemental instruction, expanded Career Services, transfer of adult learners, transfer student initiatives, Hispanic Serving Institution preparation and cluster hiring to support transdisciplinary teaching and research,” Freeman said.

Approval for termination of Lorado Taft Building 

During the Finance Audit Compliance, Facilities and Operations Committee, members discussed the surplus real estate property termination of the Lorado Taft Building, and the Board of Trustees approved it. 

The Illinois Property Control Act stipulates that public universities can sell surplus real estate and use the money made for maintenance and repairs of remaining university property. Chief Financial Officer George Middlemist said that, since the Board of Trustees approved the termination, NIU would develop a plan for university repairs.

“The Lorado Taft campus, located in Ogle County, Illinois, has served the university well for about 73 years. As programming activities at the campus are discontinued in December 2024, the property is no longer required and is considered surplus to the university mission,” Middlemist said. 

Lindsay Harris speaks to BOT about her grant regarding her research

During the Research, Legal and Legislative Affairs Committee meeting, Lindsay Harris, professor of educational psychology and co-director of the Center for Interdisciplinary Study of Language and Literacy, spoke about her research on language and reading development in children with disabilities.

“I’m in the second year of a four year NIH (National Institute of Health) project. I also, this year, was awarded a diversity supplement in addition to that original grant, which amounts to $109,000 approximately. This is NIU’s first R16 grant (Support for Research Excellence Program),” Harris said. 

During her presentation, Harris discussed the content of her current research project.

“Not much is known about how legally blind children acquire vocabulary words, very little. And so we have three aims for this study. The first one is to determine whether vocabulary development of blind children is late relative to sighted children,” Harris said. “Just that question, which seems so obvious, is not no, that’s how little research there is in this area. We’re also going to examine whether ways blind children learn words is the same as sighted  children learn words and create a set of norms that can be used for future research by other researchers and by education and clinical professionals.”

Approval for Matthew Deitch tenure 

The Academic Affairs, Student Affairs and Personnel Committee recommended and approved the promotion for Matthew Deitch to be associate professor with tenure in the Department of Earth, atmosphere and environment in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, which the Board of Trustees approved.

“The recommendation for faculty tenure and work promotion effective 2024-2025 [was approved] for Matthew Deitch, who was hired at the rank of associate professor of tenure in the Department of Earth, Atmosphere and Environment (IN WHAT YEAR?), and as noted earlier, he’s also the director of the Northern Illinois Center for Community Sustainability,” Freeman said.

The next regular Board of Trustees meeting is 9 a.m. Dec. 12 in Altgeld Hall, Room 315. Agendas are listed on the NIU Board of Trustees website.