NIU’s governing board is finally starting to hear the cries coming from the students, faculty and staff on our campus.

Last week, Roderick Groves withdrew a proposal to increase his review of faculty tenure at NIU, Illinois State University in Normal and Sangamon State University in Springfield. The proposal redefined what faculty tenure applications Groves would review and what information he would need for tenure consideration.

The Regents’ actions did not appear to attempt repairs of the existing tenure process—only to consolidate the process in order to increase their indubitable contributions.

Another fly in the Regents’ ointment involves the campuses’ increased scrutiny of the Regents’ proposed policy changes. For a while, it really looked like the Regents were trying to punish NIU and ISU for their recent attempts at breaking away from the Regents. Hell hath no fury like a governing board scorned.

A six-member committee analyzed the proposal’s passages that seemed to make the chancellor solely responsible for coordinating presidential searches and recommending final candidates to the Regents for approval. It is scary to consider what would happen to the Regency universities had the proposal not been analyzed.

The NIU community has done a good job of scrutinizing the Board’s actions. However, the Regents’ “work” is probably not done, and therefore, neither is ours.