I apologize for being a little late in responding to my colleague Kevin McKeough’s latest “op ed” piece in the Feb. 3, 1993 Star. Unfortunately, or fortunately—depending on your point of view—I have been busy meeting with those very faculty committees to which Professor McKeough feels the administration will not allow any voice in responding to PQP. Frankly, I feel my colleague’s letter is insulting to all of the faculty members who have spent countless hours trying to deal in a scholarly and rational fashion with an irrational exercise. I want to assure the members of the Academic Planning Council that they have my admiration and appreciation and my thanks for a very thankless job.

On a more important note, I have two questions to pose to my colleague. First, is Mr. Mitch Vogel, the President of the UPI, prepared to issue a public statement supporting the creation of a separate board with full power and authority for NIU? I look forward to reading Mr. Vogel’s letter. Second, why would any faculty member at NIU pay $400 to $500 annually to belong to a bargaining agency that has succeeded only in bargaining what appears to be the lowest wages in the state of Illinois? It is important to note that the data that I have attached and that I trust the The Northern Star will reproduce was not generated by an NIU administrator or a UPI official, but is a result of the American Association of University Professors’ ‘most recent national survey of salaries.

JAMES D. NORRIS

Dean

College of Liberal Arts and Sciences