NIU’s administration is denying it violated its own policy while attempting to appease the Illinois Board of Higher Education’s recommendations for program cuts.

During the spring semester, NIU’s Academic Planning Council prioritized programs recommended for consolidation or elimination by the IBHE’s Priorities, Quality and Productivity initiative. Programs given low priority ratings by the APC will be recommended for elimination or consolidation by NIU at next week’s Board of Regents meeting.

However, NIU’s Academic Procedures Manual specifically states, “A recommendation requiring board (of Regents) approval must first be approved by the department, college and appropriate university committee and councils.”

Although NIU administration does intend to seek the approval of the graduate, undergraduate and appropriate college councils, it will be unable to do so until after the Regents approve the proposed eliminations. Further, NIU administration has not sought the approval of those departments affected and has given no indication it will do so.

NIU Provost J. Carroll Moody defended the administration’s position.

“To ask a department to simply vote to eliminate one of its programs really doesn’t make any sense at all,” he said. “It’s almost silly to even consider that.”

Moody said, “There are a number of things in our report to the Regents that certainly haven’t gone there (to the graduate or undergraduate committee).

“However, I think if you look at the (University) Bylaws you’ll see that this kind of thing is appropriate. We’ve been using the University Bylaws, which is the absolute supreme law of NIU,” he said.

Moody said the Academic Procedures Manual has been under committee review since 1988. He said parts of the manual are unreliable because additions have been made by unknown individuals and committees.

“There is also a concern that this is a procedures manual and there were things being added which are policies,” Moody said.

Journalism Department Chair Daniel Riffe, whose department has not agreed to the elimination of its master’s degree, argued against the administration’s apparent shirking of the manual’s guidelines.

“The Academic Procedures Manual is not some rune or something to be thrown away,” he said. “We (department chairs) get memos all the time from the Provost’s Office which refer to the Academic Procedures Manual.”

Frederic Murray, department of foreign languages and literatures chair, said the manual is used often by his department. “One would assume that anything that originates from the administration should be in line with the Academic Procedures Manual,” he said.

Murray said although his department agreed to the loss of its master’s program in Russian, it hasn’t consented to the elimination of its German M.A.

He said the department followed the Academic Procedures Manual when creating the master’s programs in 1989.

Riffe added, “It seems to me that whoever put this procedure into the manual was very mindful of the shared governance system. This also shows how little the IBHE understands and respects faculty governance.”

James Norris, dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, said the manual might not be practical in NIU’s present climate.

“I think the procedure manual was written at a time when all we were doing was adding programs,” he said.

Norris said LA&S has an alternative procedure it follows when eliminating a program.

“We have a procedure in the college (of LA&S) that says the college curricular committee can recommend the elimination of a program,” Norris said.

He said although he did not want to see programs cut, he would rather see NIU put its own house in order as opposed to the IBHE doing it.

“I agree with Provost Moody that the APC made a series of recommendations and we, as a university, have entered into discussion with the IBHE and told them what we will and will not do,” Norris said. “Now we must act on good faith.”

NIU’s 1993 Productivity Report, which must include those program eliminations approved by the Regents, will be presented to the IBHE at its September meeting.