NIU’s voice to the Illinois Board of Higher Education has responded to a year’s worth of IBHE actions.

NIU Professor David Ripley served as the representative of the Faculty Advisory Committee to the IBHE for the past year. The IBHE governs all of state higher education.

At the last meeting of the University Council, Ripley read a report of the impressions and beliefs he came away with after sitting in on IBHE meetings during the past year.

In his report, Ripley outlined the following points: the growing influence by community colleges on the IBHE, the inevitable forced reduction on educational programs and the increasing burden being placed on faculty members.

Ripley said the governing system set up to control expansion of off-campus programs serves as proof of the growing influence of community colleges.

This program required NIU to join and pay dues to a group of seven community colleges, Ripley said.

The colleges have to be consulted about new educational programs before they can be sent to the Board of Regents, NIU’s direct governing board. The community colleges can then act as “gatekeepers,” Ripley said.

This program was a result of an argument concerning NIU’s new Hoffman Estates consolidation center.

The Hoffman Estates campus was granted to NIU despite protests from some private schools in the area, the biggest protester being Roosevelt Community College. “The IBHE was very embarrassed by the whole incident,” he said.

Ripley also addressed the Priorities, Quality and Productivity initiative. PQP will reduce program offerings based on statistical data.

Ripley said he believes the IBHE is working on a flawed premise.

“The biggest flaw the IBHE is operating on is those predictions of needs,” Ripley said. “The art of predicting is a very loose art.”

However, Deborah Smitley, IBHE assistant director of press relations, said, “There are different mechanisms to predict future needs. We are trying to find the best way.

“If we don’t make these decisions they will be made for us,” Smitley said.

Ripley also listed the following faculty concerns: no five- plus-five retirement options, the embarrassment of the faculty medical insurance increase, raises only by reallocation, teaching more and larger classes, less travel money and less research support.

Of these concerns, Ripley said the medical insurance issue was the most bitter. “The humbling of our medical system is really demoralizing,” he said.

Ripley said the results of the IBHE actions could be far-reaching in the faculty. “It’s quite likely there will be considerable impetus for unionization,” he said.