Office of the Senate
180 Henry Administration Building
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Urbana, IL 61801-3621

To: Richard Schacht, Chair, Senate Council
From: Michael Grossman, Chair, General University Policy (GUP)
Date: December 16, 1998
Re: GP.99.04, Support Services Strategy (S3 Report)

As instructed by the Senate Council, GUP examined with care the "Support Services Strategy" (S3) report issued by President Stukel. In particular, we reviewed the report in the light of the assessment by the Campus Advisory Teams (CAT) of the S3 project and its recommendations. Our view of S3 is congruent with the severe criticism levied at the report by the CATs as well as by virtually every faculty group whose opinion was solicited. In view of the consistent negative assessment that the S3 project received, GUP believes the Senate should adopt a formal resolution in which it articulates its response to the S3 project. We believe also that the Senate's reaction needs to go beyond the submission of critiques via the campus administration.

We urge a clear and public report of the Senate's concerns. Two factors reinforce our position:

• The S3 summary of the CAT responses that falls seriously short of reporting accurately their content; and

• The accumulating evidence that implementation of the S3 project is proceeding without regard for the comments provided upon it. In this regard we note President Stukel's October 21 assertion to University Senates Conference (UC.99.02) that rapid implementation of the "non-controversial" sections can proceed, and the subsequent announcement by Vice President Bazzani of a reorganization of his units, including explicit assignments to several officers for implementing S3 recommendations.

If the President can interpret the devastating critiques by the CATs as an indication that a consensus is forming around S3, it seems necessary to convey to the President the University community's reaction in definite and unambiguous terms.

GUP met with the Provost and the Chancellor to discuss the implications for campus autonomy and educational policy of recent actions by the Office of the President. We understand that line officers, who report ultimately to the President and who have major responsibilities for the smooth functioning of the University, may choose to work out differences in a discrete and non-confrontational manner. It is crucial to remember, however, that the Senate and the Senate Council have different roles to play. The Senate is charged by the Statutes with the responsibility for educational policy and for the quality and excellence of this campus. GUP believes that S3 constitutes a direct attack on shared governance and on the role of the faculty in making academic policy at the University of Illinois.

Apart from the many distressing features of the S3 report - the vagueness of its proposals, the fact that it substitutes slogans and PR cliches for systematic analysis, the absence of any cost estimates, and the fact that it proposes to solve our administrative problems by lodging responsibility for administration in organizations that have not always functioned in ways that serve this campus well - there are fundamental deficiencies in the S3 project that need to be addressed directly by the Senate. We refer, specifically, to the following deficiencies:

1. The faculty has had virtually no role in the preparation and articulation of the report. As has been noted by the CATs and by other Senate committees, the S3 teams lacked representation by faculty and had virtually no input from the research and scholarship sides of the campus.

2. The process by which S3 recommendations are to be evaluated and implemented raises serious concerns. On page 130, "Next Steps" are to "Obtain senior management consensus on the strategies…Then, achieve widespread exposure to, if not consensus on, the strategies and recommendations among the University community. Revisions to the plan should be made, as deemed necessary by the Human Resource and Administration Management Team." In other words, although a gesture is made to shared governance, the final decisions are to be made by the "administrative team" and "consensus" is not even a desideratum, let alone a condition. An examination of the membership of the Human Resources and Administration Management Team (page 141) reveals a group almost entirely devoid of faculty or students.

3. The report reveals a serious disregard for the core values of the academic enterprise. On page 17 it asserts that, "…the distinct identities of the campuses and of the individual academic units contribute to a duplication of effort; inconsistencies in policy, process, and technology; and general lack of coordination. The consensus-driven decision-making process is slow, lacks visible leadership in which there is confidence, and often results in choices that serve local needs but are not in the best interest of the University as a whole." In GUP's view, this philosophy is totally unacceptable. These unsupported conclusions are contradictory to the nature and ethos of a major research university with a proud century-long record of excellence.

4. The report is deeply uninformed about the realities of the University of Illinois. It ignores the fact that a substantial portion of our revenue is raised by the faculty, operating as private entrepreneurs. It attempts to solve the problems of less than 50% of our operation, management, and service needs, and does so without ever addressing the needs of the research community on campus. Any system that would interfere with the effectiveness of our entrepreneurs will have severe negative effects on the quality of the University of Illinois and on its ability to continue to obtain extramural funding. As another illustration, consider the fact that the report by and large ignored the Civil Service System. It is difficult to understand how one can propose detailed plans for improving the processes for recruiting and training staff that fail to engage, for the first 87 pages of the report, through its first seven "strategies," the severe constraints placed on our personnel system by the realities imposed on the University of Illinois by the Civil Service System.

In view of all this, it is imperative that the Senate communicate to the President its sense that (a) the S3 report and the process that generated it are deeply flawed, (b) such far-reaching changes, with their direct impact on academic policy, cannot be made without faculty input or approval, (c) the report and its recommendation have no present support among the faculty, and (d) the President should develop his commendable interest in efficiency and effectiveness within the traditional system of shared governance.

For these reasons, GUP is presenting the attached resolution for consideration and action by the Senate at the earliest possible convenience. GUP would be pleased if other Senate committees that have considered S3, or the Senate Council, will join us in sponsoring the attached resolution. At this time, however, GUP is submitting this resolution as a committee report and proposal, which it asks the Council to place on the Senate agenda.