Highlights to Wednesday’s University Council meeting included comments on several key campus issues by NIU President John La Tourette and several amendments to the University Bylaws.

Among the subjects La Tourette addressed was a recent proposal of the athletic department to increase student fees. The fee would offset a 40 percent cut in the department’s budget which is scheduled to occur over the next five years.

If approved, the increase would raise the fees $4.01 per credit hour by 1998—a student taking 15 hours would then pay $60.15.

“I have tried to make it clear that I don’t prejudge these things,” La Tourette said. “This (the fee increase) will have to be looked at carefully.”

La Tourette also commented on the progression of the Academic Planning Council’s review of NIU programs cited by the Illinois Board of Higher Education’s Priorities, Quality and Productivity initiative.

“I would think what we will end up with,” he said, “is lists saying ‘here are some actions which we are in the process of taking or planning to take, here are some actions we are willing to take, here are some actions we will continue to look at’ and ‘here are some things we won’t be willing to do.'”

Thus far the APC has made several tentative recommendations concerning programs the IBHE has targeted for elimination. Programs which have been given high priority, programs NIU is very likely to defend from the IBHE and not cut, included NIU’s College of Law and the Ph.D. in psychology.

The APC will finalize its recommendation to the NIU administration Monday.

Also during the meeting, the UC addressed several proposed amendments to the University Bylaws.

The proposals had been tabled during the UC’s January and December meetings due to low attendance. During the January meeting, the UC members passed a resolution that UC Executive Secretary Norman Magden enforce a provision in the bylaws which allows for the removal of elected UC members who do not attend three consecutive meetings.

During Wednesday’s meeting, Magden told the UC that although he had attempted to implement the recommendation “the problem is more complicated than we thought it might be.”

Magden said although there were several UC members who had missed two consecutive meetings, “there is only one member who is suspicious of missing three consecutive meetings.”