After hearing about the Board of Regents’ secret arrangement to pay an NIU professor not to be at NIU, one thought comes to mind—it’s about time NIU gets its own governing body.

I’d like to give you the full true and accurate text of their discourse, but the Regents didn’t see fit to invite the press or any other member of the public to attend their “executive session.”

Maybe the Regents, who govern NIU and two other state universities, went through a rationale something like this…

“Look, we have this professor at NIU, Clyde Wingfield, who probably doesn’t like his job very much. Maybe the public is giving him a hard time because of those nasty press accounts when he was president. Can you believe the press?

“How could a college newspaper question how taxpayer money is spent? Only the Regents in our infinite wisdom may decide how the public’s money should be used. And HOW could the Illinois Auditor General question what we do with public dollars? He has no business …”

Apparently some Regents think the $100,000 used to remodel the former president’s home is perfectly acceptable or that it was all a bad dream. At any rate, the Regents decision to give Wingfield a year off with pay must have went something like…

“Since poor old Clyde is only making $70,000 a year to suffer through the insurrmountable and unwarranted attacks by that malicious newspaper that dares to criticize the sovereign Regents, it is only equitable that we, the omnipotent governing vehicle of Northern’s exquisite institute of higher education decry that the aforementioned maligned educator shall receive full compensation from said sovereign body for research assistance and employment relocation at the nation’s capitol.”

What all this garbage means is—”Clyde, here’s your $70,000. Go to Washington and try to find another job, okay?”

Of course, some Regents might have questioned the Wingfield deal…

“Hey wait a minute. What happens when the folks at NIU here about this?”

“Well, no problem. They’re not here. Just don’t tell the press about our little secret. Besides if anyone finds out, we’ll just tell them that NIU will save money in the long run. If Dr. Wingfield persuades some other thriftless governing board to hire him, we won’t have to pay him his wages until he retires. We’ll just have to pay him this last $70,000. It’ll be an overall savings for the taxpayers.”

What flawless logic!

Now that the Regents decided on the Wingfield deal, they still had the problem of how to keep it just between themselves. You see there’s this law … the Open Meetings Act. It says you can’t take a formal vote on something in closed session. But the Regents got around that pretty easily…

“I’ve got an idea! Let’s move to approve what we discussed in our closed meeting without saying what we discussed. That way, only we’ll know what we’re approving.”

The Regents must have liked that idea, because that’s essentially what they did. The Wingfield deal and the way it was carried out is completely absurd. NIU deserves better. It’s about time NIU declared its independence from a governing board that doesn’t even have the guts to tell us what its doing with our money.

NIU should get to decide what to do with the few state dollars it gets.

The Regents are making it difficult to ask the state legislature for more money to waste. Perhaps when the Regents request more state funds, the legislature will ask—”Who do you want to pay off now?”

The Regents reqularly make important decisions affecting NIU off campus. The Wingfield deal was made and approved in Springfield at Sangamon State University.

With a separate governing board, decisions will be made on-campus where there is more opportunity for input from faculty, staff and students.

Rep. John Countryman, R-DeKalb, has said Wingfield should be put out to pasture. Maybe the Regents should go with him.