In his Aug. 30 meeting with the NIU Faculty Assembly, Chancellor Groves stated that proposed changes in the Board of Regents policies are, at least in part, a response to campus pressure for a separate governing board. The assembly could not elicit from Groves a statement of what, specifically, is wrong on the Regency campuses or of how consolidation of power by the chancellor will cure this malaise, but he clearly has discipline in mind.

Groves, the alter ego of the Board of Regents, cannot perceive a university campus as a place where open discourse and the free expression of ideas is the norm. His latest performance before the assembly is perhaps the best argument yet for a separate governing board for NIU.

Proposals now being considered by the Board have two interesting consequences.

1. Because the Regency System presidents will have little or not autonomy, they will, in fact, be “presidents” in name only. In the future, it will be more difficult than ever to recruit true scholar-administrators for these jobs.

2. NIU will be separated from state largess by one additional (adversarial) administrative layer. In our struggle to become a strong university with a research mission, consider how this affects our position with respect to the University of Illinois whose chancellor works in Champaign-Urbana and reports to a politically powerful board of trustees elected by statewide ballot. The latter act as a true advocacy group for U of I to the Illinois Board of Higher Education.

Our present Board of Regents is a lay group appointed by the governor of Illinois. Its members have no special expertise in university administration. They would be served best by administrators who are keenly aware of the scholarly activity that takes place, not only on their own campus, but across the country and beyond. Our president, provost and academic deans all have published works in their discipline that are open to criticism by the world community of scholars. They know the frustration and exhaltation of the creative process. Dr. Groves’ background is different.

Groves began his position as an assistant professor and has spent most of his career working as an administrator for the Board of Regents. The Regents are very comfortable with him and he with them, but good universities are about ideas, not comfort. Unfortunately, Chancellor Groves’ performance before the NIU Faculty Assembly demonstrated that nothing in his administrative training has prepared him to assist the Regents where they need help most—in understanding what is a university.

Eugene Perry

Professor of geology