The Illinois Community College Board has created a task force to explore changes in state statutes that could allow community colleges to offer baccalaureate degrees.

Both the Illinois Board of Higher Education and the ICCB oppose changing the statutes necessary to allow a community college to offer its own baccalaureate degree program without further research.

“We don’t feel that now is the time to move ahead on this,” said Gary Alexander, deputy director for Academic Affairs for the IBHE. “We don’t have enough information to change statutes now.”

Kishwaukee College has never had any serious discussion about offering baccalaureate degrees, Kish President Dave Louis said.

“I don’t see any advantage to Kishwaukee or the community by offering a baccalaureate,” Louis said. “We have a good working relationship with Northern and our students go to Northern now [for their baccalaureate].”

Although a need for a baccalaureate degree program might not fit into Kishwaukee’s mission, there is a potential situation where offering them might come in handy, said Tom Cross, vice president of career/transfer instruction at Kish.

“The only thing that would make sense is a degree that NIU does not have,” Cross said. “If, in five years, there was a need for a bachelor’s degree in radiation technology and NIU said they were not going to offer it, then maybe we would look at that then. I would be surprised – but not hugely – if the changes went through.”

The ICCB will be in charge of the task force and will consist of about 20 ICCB and IBHE members, including one Community College Student Advisory Committee member.

“There is no intention to drag our feet,” Alexander said. “It is an important issue, and we have to address it.”

Officials at William Rainey Harper College in Palatine have said they want to offer three or four specialty baccalaureate degrees.

“Harper wanted to go directly to the state assembly to get the statute changed,” said Virginia McMillan, executive vice president of the ICCB. “Even if the statute was changed, IBHE still has to approve the schools offering the baccalaureate.”

The IBHE did not include a resolution, presented by the IBHE student advisory committee, to establish a timeline for the task force to complete its study.