MORNING SESSION: The discussion of the October 5, 1999 meeting, in which the IBHE Faculty Advisory Committee observed the Illinois Board of Higher Education meeting at Northeastern Illinois University, focused on the "Best Practices" presentations from selected institutions.

Some FAC members noted that few of the "Best Practices" reports focused on new initiatives in response to The Illinois Commitment document, but were rather practices which were already in operation. The conversation at the FAC meeting turned to the CEO "top down" model of administration that seemed to be evident in the reports given by the Presidents at the October meeting. Others indicated that this model of administration was representative of their institution's management style. Most expressed concern over the extent to which this model was being adopted by college and university administrators and found the model in conflict with the traditional collegial environment in academic institutions and, sometimes, in conflict with the principles of shared governance of academic institutions. One member of the Committee noted that under the CEO model, those who disagree with administrative decisions are not considered "team players" and are perceived as a threat to the organization. But, it was noted that in academe, the tradition of conflict and divergence in opinions is part of the collegial process of governance.

The concept of the team player is reserved for the playing field, not the classroom or research laboratory. Conflict and open debate are essential to the academic process of shared governance, it was noted. It was the consensus of the committee that concerns about the CEO model of academic administration should be expressed in a report to the IBHE. The representative from Illinois State University suggested that state supported college and university presidents should be reminded that it is their duty to educate their Boards that shared governance exists, and Boards of Trustees and the Presidents, along with Faculty, participate in this shared governance process, unlike the private sector CEO model which usually does not include the concept of shared governance. It was suggested that the Advisory Committee seek a commitment from the IBHE to shared governance in state supported colleges and universities.

Concerns were also expressed over the lack of attention the IBHE seemed to pay to the demographer they invited to speak. The case in point was that after the guest speaker presented evidence that Illinois student populations would, at best, hold steady in a no growth pattern in the coming years, the Board approved the establishment of the new Capital Scholars program at the University of Illinois at Springfield.

Some FAC members felt this was an example of how IBHE decisions were politically based rather than knowledge based, and concern was expressed that with no growth statewide in the student population, as predicted by the guest speaker at the IBHE meeting, some private and other public schools may lose programs to the newly established programs at state supported institutions.

Some characterized IBHE Chair Philip Rock's attitude toward the Advisory Committee reports as dismissive. It also seemed as if all the decisions had been made prior to the meeting and thus any discussion had little impact. It was noted that even though strong arguments were put forth against some of the items on the agenda, there was little discussion of the points made by the Board and even those Board members expressing reservations often voted for the motion. In this context, the FAC raised the question as to why the reports by the representatives from the advisory committees had been moved from the beginning of the IBHE meetings to the end. This was a decision apparently made by Chair Rock. It was suggested that the FAC raise the issue of when the Advisory Committee reports occur in the Agenda with the IBHE.

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To conduct the business of the subcommittees the Faculty Advisory Committee broke up into the four subcommittees. After an hour of subcommittee discussions, the Committee reconvened and received the following reports from the subcommittees:

The subcommittee indicated a need for a clear and persistent faculty voice, if not a vote, on IBHE's Access and Diversity Committee. Because diverse student bodies bring diversity issues with them into the classroom, faculty know those issues from first-hand experience and, thus, have much to contribute to IBHE deliberations on these concerns. The subcommittee felt that the expectations for meeting the needs of such students through the Internet may be naive.