NIU President John La Tourette eased faculty members’ fears Wednesday about a state-wide procedure which could eliminate some academic programs.

La Tourette explained the procedure to University Council members at the first meeting of the year.

The procedure is the result of the Illinois Board of Higher Education Priority, Quality, and Productivity initiative (PQP), which evaluates all state university academic programs based on statistical guidelines.

“It’s not time to panic,” La Tourette said. “We may be moving away from confrontation (with the IBHE) and more toward dialogue and discussion with them.”

La Tourette said he hopes the upcoming IBHE report will come in suggestion form, leaving NIU in a “much more flexible position.”

However, he said previous reports from the IBHE have appeared as demands.

The IBHE might be looking into the wrong areas to save money, La Tourette said.

“At best when you eliminate a program there is only marginal savings,” he said. “Moreover, I believe in some cases program elimination can cause higher costs in the short run.”

La Tourette identified three areas NIU could save money without eliminating academic programs: intercollegiate athletics, departmental administration and faculty workloads.

Intercollegiate athletics has been placed on a five-year plan to phase out its state appropriated funding, which will result in a $2.3 million savings.

La Tourette said administration costs could also be reduced. “State-wide (departmental administration) is where we appear to be most out of line,” he said.

Also, a $2.5 million savings could be made in faculty workloads with a 5 percent shift from research to instruction.

“The students would see it in the classrooms and the IBHE would see it in our financial reports,” La Tourette said.

However, Bob Lane, professor of Operations Management and Information Systems, said changing faculty workloads might eventually cost jobs without significant savings. “Some poor instructor off the bottom (of the pay scale) will no longer be around,” he said. “I’d like to lose them off the top.”

UC members also expressed concerns that the recommendations from the Academic Resource Advisory Committee (ARAC) would not influence the IBHE evaluation of programs.

Liberal Arts and Science Dean James Norris said although the ARAC report has fizzled off, it still serves as a basis for continued evaluation. “The committee’s report simply didn’t meet the needs of the IBHE demands,” he said.

English Professor James Giles, a member of ARAC, said the committee’s original plan did not involve reporting to the IBHE. “If we didn’t respond well to the IBHE, there is a reason,” he said. “We didn’t know we were supposed to.”

Critics have labelled such steps as the ARAC report as smoke-and-mirrors tactics.

Assistant Provost Lynne Waldeland said, “(The ARAC report) is the foundation from which everything that is going on now works.”