The NIU Faculty Assembly didn’t buy what Regents Chancellor Rod Groves came to campus Wednesday to sell.

Most of the 30 Assembly members quietly listened to Groves address a list of previously submitted questions about his controversial proposed changes in Regents’ policy. But scores of questions remain unanswered about how the changes will affect NIU’s already rocky relationship with its governing board.

At the July Regents’ meeting, Groves proposed several wording changes which many have labeled an attempt to secure more control over NIU President John La Tourette, Illinois State University President Thomas Wallace and Sangamon State University President Durward Long. Groves said the interests of the Board of Regents, not those of his own, are the driving forces behind the proposed policy changes.

Groves confirmed speculation that his proposal stems in part from NIU and ISU’s recent attempts to break away from the Regents and establish separate governing boards. The Regents “took stock last spring” of the situations on the Regency campuses and “felt the situation wasn’t what it should be,” Groves said.

University Council Executive Secretary Carroll Moody called Groves’ responses to the Assembly “disappointing.” Groves avoided “really specific, forthcoming answers about what the policy changes meant,” Moody said.

Groves is “fully aware of all the controversies” surrounding his proposal and should “come clean” with what the changes would actually mean, Moody said. Assembly members shared a sense of displeasure that Groves “couldn’t have missed” hearing, Moody said.

The Assembly and an audience of about 15 people listened to Groves’ explanations with calm exteriors. Only one member, NIU philosophy professor Sherman Stanage, adamantly questioned Groves’ intentions aloud.

“Tell us (the NIU community) in an open forum what we did that was wrong,” Stanage said. He labeled Groves’ attempts to reword the Regents’ policy as “telling us that we did something wrong.”

Groves quickly rebuked Stanage, saying he felt he was “not being dealt with in an understanding way.”

Groves’ closing remarks seemed to provoke the most reaction. “The world of classrooms and the world of governance” do not mix, he said. “I don’t think you (instructors and students) in your classrooms will be affected by this at all.”

William Monat, a former Regents chancellor and NIU president, called Groves’ closing statement “distressing.” Groves “seemed to be saying that (the Regents’) governance is none of our business.”