TO: Acting President Lisa Freeman

NIU is in a transitional period, which provides opportunities for new beginnings. Former President Doug Baker’s June 30 resignation and the circumstances surrounding it made it clear key deficiencies exist at NIU that need to be addressed, the most glaring example being concerns the NIU community has about trust and transparency.

As acting president, your actions during this transition can have a massive influence and enact positive change.

Simply put, Baker’s actions damaged the credibility of the university. Any accomplishments he made as president will forever be overshadowed by his questionable decisions and “mismanagement” of the university, as outlined in the findings of the May 31 Office of the Executive Inspector General report.

When I interviewed Baker on April 27 for a story about the legal fees associated with the OEIG investigation, he was not entirely forthcoming. I understand he was prohibited from discussing the OEIG investigation at that time, thus it was up to me to try to verify information via other means. As a news reporter, it is my responsibility to do everything in my power to verify the facts; it is a responsibility all of us at the Northern Star take seriously.

The process of verifying facts often entails submitting Freedom of Information Act requests. This is a key tool used by reporters in an attempt to track down vital information and facts.

While there may be some individuals who submit FOIA requests to NIU for sport — with no particular justification for countless requests made that waste the time and resources of NIU Institutional Communication staff members — Northern Star staffers submit these requests as part of our jobs in seeking the truth and reporting the facts.

There would be less of a need to submit many of these FOIA requests if NIU officials, as a whole, followed your lead and made a pledge to improve transparency.

During a June 28 Board of Trustees meeting, you made a pledge to make your travel receipts and reimbursement requests publicly available to improve transparency. This is a step in the right direction, and I applaud you for making that pledge.

In a July 13 interview with the Northern Star, Wheeler Coleman, Board of Trustees chair, also made a pledge to improve transparency.

“Our intent is to be as open, transparent [and] forthright as we possibly can,” Coleman said. “We need to do that through extensive communications.”

While both vows are commendable, at this point, they are only words. The NIU community would be well served if the actions of the university mirrored these verbal commitments.

For example, in the process of trying to verify information regarding the legal fees associated with the hiring of the law firm Drinker, Biddle & Reath LLP, NIU’s department of Institutional Communications was not forthcoming with the Northern Star’s requests to verify why the law firm was hired.

While a FOIA request was submitted for information regarding the hiring of this law firm, and the FOIA officer provided the invoices showing NIU paid $100,807.06 to the firm, it was not clear why this law firm was hired. An April 22, 2015, purchase order NIU generated to Drinker Biddle said the payment was for “outside legal services for President Baker,” according to the FOIA document shared with the Northern Star.

Matthew Cabrera, assistant to the deputy FOIA officer, said in an April 28 email to the Northern Star “the services in this letter were not provided in representation of President Baker. Baker was not being represented by this firm in this matter. The description on the purchase requisition stating ‘Outside legal services for President Baker’ was a clerical error.”

The Northern Star’s efforts to verify why Drinker Biddle was hired were hindered by a lack of transparency.

The hiring of Drinker Biddle “has nothing to do with OEIG whatsoever. NIU sought their advice on an issue that is privileged,” said NIU spokesperson Lisa Miner in a text message to the Northern Star.

Legal fees, including the ones incurred by Drinker Biddle, are paid using state-appropriated funds and student tuition payments, according to NIU’s website.

It is concerning $100,807.06 of state-appropriated funds and student tuition payments would be used to hire an outside law firm, yet officials will not divulge why and instead deem that as “privileged” information. This is a perfect example of why the NIU community might have trust issues with the university.

My hope is that you and the Board will consider this example when making future decisions, including making the upcoming presidential selection process more transparent than the 2013 hiring process. That selection process in which Baker was hired also raised concerns about the lack of transparency, as the names of the candidates were kept confidential until the selection of Baker was announced, according to an April 2, 2013 Northern Star article.

As acting president, you set the tone for the entire university. To improve NIU’s reputation in the aftermath of the aforementioned recent events, I hope your commitment to transparency is a university-wide one that has far-reaching effects which trickle down to every department on campus.

Sincerely,

Ian Tancun

Columnist/News Reporter