The Southern Illinois University Board of Trustees met on Thursday, Feb. 6 for its regularly scheduled meeting to discuss the status of diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives on its campuses, SIU Carbondale becoming a top tier research institution, increasing enrollment numbers and the expansion of the SIU School of Medicine.

On the agenda were many things, including presentations from different chancellors and deans, but perhaps the most notable takeaway from Thursday’s meeting was Chancellor Austin Lane’s hesitant, off-the-cuff remark about SIU Carbondale transcending into the “upper echelon of universities” by being categorized by the Carnegie Foundation as a Research 1 (R1) University.

“Jeff, is it okay to say it?” Lane asked before being prompted by the board to “spill the beans.”

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“Well, I think there are only 146 Research 1 universities,” said Lane. “In the state of Illinois there are only two public R1’s: the University of Illinois Champaign and the University of Illinois Chicago. We’ll become the third R1 that’s public in our state.”

R1 universities are institutions that have been classified by the Carnegie Foundation as having “the highest level of research activity.”

SIU currently resides in the R2 category, meaning that it emanates “high research activity,” but, according to Lane, on Thursday, Feb. 13, SIU will move into the “very high research activity” category and will officially join 146 other schools across the country in being labeled an R1 institution.

Apparently joining SIU in becoming an R1 institution on Feb. 13 will be Howard University, making it the first Historically Black College to do so.

“I think Howard University may become the first R1 HBCU. That’s gonna be announced as well,” Lane said to the panel of chuckling board members. “I just spilled the beans for them too.”

SIU will become the fifth university in Illinois to earn R1 status, joining the two the universities in the U of I system and the private University of Chicago and Northwestern University in Evanston.

SIU will host a reception on Feb. 17 to celebrate the achievement.

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DEI Discussion: “No plans to make changes at this time”

Concerns have risen across the country regarding the status of DEI initiatives in light of orders executed by newly inaugurated President Donald Trump.

To address those concerns and to touch on the principles being upheld within the systems of SIU, the board heard from Sheila Caldwell, SIU’s vice president of anti-racism and DEI, who spoke to the changing legal landscape and the system’s commitment to combating racism and remaining diverse, equitable and inclusive.

“In light of recent executive orders dismissing diversity, equity and inclusion efforts as wasteful and useless, I want to reiterate the impact that DEI initiatives have had across SIU campuses and communities,” said Caldwell. “Under equity initiatives, we have observed measurable improvements and retention rates of Pell eligible, first generation, African American, Latino, Hispanic and white students at SIU Carbondale and SIU Edwardsville.

“Furthermore, the equity and inclusion efforts within the school of medicine have had lifesaving results by educating clinicians, staff and learners on the social determinants of health and ensuring that diverse populations have access to quality and equitable healthcare,” said Caldwell.

In recent statements, Trump has strongly criticized DEI initiatives, particularly in the context of government agencies and university systems.

Following an airplane collision at Washington’s Reagan National Airport that resulted in 67 fatalities, Trump attributed the incident to DEI policies within the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). He suggested that these initiatives have led to the hiring of unqualified personnel, thereby compromising safety standards.

As reported by the Associated Press, no evidence has emerged indicating that initiatives seeking to diversify the FAA played any role in the collision.

Trump’s executive orders that shut down DEI efforts in federal agencies and that ban those same efforts in companies with federal contracts have not only sparked discussion among board meetings in higher education, but have forced universities to adjust to new restrictions, leaving many federal and university employees on leave and in limbo.

Additionally reported by the AP, dozens of federal employees involved in DEI roles have been placed on paid administrative leave, with plans to eliminate these positions entirely. In response, some universities are closing DEI offices, halting related research projects and canceling conferences to comply with the new directives to avoid losing essential federal funding.

Opponents of DEI initiatives and those that support Trump’s executive orders argue that programs that practice DEI undermine meritocracy by prioritizing identity over qualifications, claiming that it leads to less competent hires, like insinuated by Trump, and that DEI encourages things like reverse discrimination and unfair disadvantages.

Proponents of DEI initiatives, like Caldwell, would argue that these programs do not undermine meritocracy but rather expand opportunities for historically marginalized groups who have faced systemic barriers, ensuring a fairer playing field for the future.

“Despite our success, the data reveal persistent challenges across SIU campuses,” said Caldwell, referencing SIU’s claim that although DEI initiatives have made an impact, the programs have yet to achieve complete equity.

“We just had an opportunity to hear the reports from the chancellors, and we see that those gaps are narrowing, but still, we have gaps with Pell eligible students, Native Americans, Latino Hispanics and African Americans,” said Caldwell. “They continue to graduate at a lower rate compared to their white peers. This disparity is not a coincidence. It stems from systemic inequities such as underfunded elementary and high schools, limited access to technology and high teacher turnover. These obstacles disproportionately affect underrepresented students and racialized ethnic minorities.”

According to both Caldwell and the data, there is still work to be done.

“The work of advancing diversity, equity and inclusion requires long-term commitment and intentional action to break down barriers and to ensure equal opportunities for all of our work,” said Caldwell. “We are deeply committed to promoting equity in hiring and retention practices, equitable pay, addressing and resolving employee grievances and creating programming that celebrates and honors diverse communities.

“We work to cultivate a dignified, inclusive and excellent work and learning environment, implementing strategies to ensure that all faculty, staff and students have equal opportunities to thrive.

“While the terms diversity, equity and inclusion are rarely used directly in political discourse, the principles they represent are positive. It is difficult to argue that having diverse perspectives, backgrounds and voices represented is a negative thing.”

SIU System President Daniel F. Mahony, Chairman J. Phil Gilbert and Vice Chairman Ed Hightower all shared Caldwell’s sentiment.

“You know our goal is really to support all of our students,” said Mahony. “We recognize though that the support may be different depending on their different situations.

“We have student veteran support services, we have support services for students with various disabilities – our goal is to make sure that every student has what they need to be successful.

“What we also find is that if we raise the success of any group, everybody’s success seems to go up. It does not take away from anybody else’s success when one group succeeds, and we certainly have data here and data from other places,” said Mahony, who continued addressing the claims that oppose DEI initiatives and further elaborated on the SIU data.

“What is interesting is that we’re hearing a lot about how we’ve gone too far,” said Mahony, referring to those that claim that DEI is no longer needed because it has accomplished what it set out to do.

“If you look at the last U.S. census, about 41% of the U.S. population was underrepresented racialized minorities,” said Mahony. “If we’d gone too far, you would think our number would be somewhere north of 41%, but that’s just not true nationally in higher education. It is well below that.

“If you look at the SIU data, there is only one category where we’re above 20%, and that is faculty, and that’s barely above 20%, so the idea that we’ve gone too far just does not match the data in any way, shape or form. It’s completely inconsistent.”

“As someone who has come up through the struggles, I share the many experiences that Dr. Caldwell alluded to today, “ said Hightower. “What we have to do is continue to tell the positive stories and successes that we are experiencing here at SIU. If we do that, we are dispelling a lot of the misinformation about DEI that’s out there.”

“I told President Mahony yesterday – as a university, we need to stay the course,” said Gilbert. “I can’t think of an institution more important to diversity, equity and inclusion than an educational institution, because education is the bridge to tomorrow for everyone – no matter their race, color creed or national origin. So I think that we are committed to staying the course.”

“As chair Gilbert said, we have no plans to make changes at this time,” said Mahony. “There’s nothing that’s been issued/released that would suggest that we have to. We’ll continue to monitor. There is clarity and clarification coming. There also may be legal challenges for that clarification, so we’ll take that as it comes.”

Enrollment numbers and an emphasis on online learning

“Historically, our springs have been pretty bad,” Lane said of Carbondale enrollment.

But this year, that’s not the case.

SIU’s spring enrollment numbers are up 3.27% from last year, meaning that Lane and staff recruited 344 more Salukis this time around.

In Lane’s enrollment presentation, he broke down the SIU student body into six separate categories: New students, new undergraduates, new graduates/professionals, new online students, new transfers and new Saluki Step Ahead members.

Each category saw an increase in enrollment, but none saw as much of an increase in enrollment as the online category.

SIU added 165 online students this semester, yielding a whopping 61.76% increase from last year.

“We think online for us is going to be the future,” said Lane.

“We do have some partnerships with Risepoint,” Lane said, referring to the online education technology company that provides software services to universities that aim to help them grow their online programs.

“There’s lots of strategic work that’s happening there to really increase the online enrollment for our students,” said Lane, providing further emphasis on SIU’s commitment to exploring the rapidly developing world of digital education.

Other notable enrollment data points detailed by Chancellor Lane were:

• All colleges increased students
• Undergraduate transfers increased by 0.66%
• Graduate readmits increased by 28.95%
• 9% more students were retained than last year
• The fall-to-spring retention rate remained at 84%

Lane spoke to SIU’s Say “Yes” Campaign as being a key factor in the positive enrollment report.

The Say “Yes” Campaign essentially streamlines the application process for high schoolers – specifically southern Illinois high schoolers.

Lane said that the Say “Yes” strategy takes the work out of the high school counselors’ hands by removing some of the steps prospective students would typically take when applying to SIU.

“There’s no essays and all these other things that can really slow that (application process) down,” said Lane. “We want them to say ‘yes’ to us even when they don’t have to apply.”

For Lane, growth is both the focal point and the bottom line for the SIU administration.

“We’ve got to grow,” he said.

An expanding SIU School of Medicine

The SIU School of Medicine is currently in the process of adding multiple new buildings to its growing campus, and the SIU board on Thursday approved the addition of two more.

Attending the meeting to provide insight into the status of the school’s expansion was SIU School of Medicine Dean Dr. Jerry Kruse.

“The SIU School of Medicine has taken the lead, in the world, on various aspects of medical education,” said Kruse. “Our facilities are old and outdated and the facilities need to be updated to keep us at that top of the world presence.”

Kruse told the board that a Medical Education Building will be necessary if enrollment were to increase, which, as reflected in both the data and the board’s approval, is what they expect.

“We’ve seen dramatic growth in the clinical practice,” said Kruse. “Any measurement that you could use would show growth by 40-60%. Yet, we all know that there is a lack of health care professionals in the actual practice.”

The school of medicine has now purchased land for two new buildings on the Springfield campus: a Neuroscience Institute Ambulatory Instructional Facility, which is expected to be 72,000 square feet and cost SIU $52,292,300, and the aforementioned Medical Education Building, which is expected to be 97,111 square feet and will cost $72,569,100.

However, Kruse said that they are still trying to determine how exactly the buildings will be funded.

“We’re still looking for developmental funds,” said Kruse. “Donations and other opportunities – even capital money from the state of Illinois.”

Already funded, the audiology building on 720 N. Bond St. in Springfield has been turned into the otolaryngology building, better known as the ENT building, and will serve as a hub for head and neck surgery upstate.

The board had previously approved the purchase of a Walgreens building on 1310 S. Fifth St. and will look to repurpose it as a new Family Medicine Clinic. The building is 13,900 square feet and the renovation will cost SIU approximately $5,650,000.

The board had also previously approved the purchase of two more properties – an SOM Family Medicine center on 520 N. Fourth St. and an SOM Administration building on 201 E. Madison St. One is expected to be 61,000 square feet and the other is 88,900. The deal to purchase that land is still being negotiated.

In total, the SIU School of Medicine is slated to add roughly 332,911 square feet to its Springfield campus within the next five years, dishing out hundreds of millions of dollars to do so.

Updates to the Carbondale Campus

The school of medicine isn’t the only SIU campus getting much needed upgrades.

Although not nearly as expensive, Schneider Hall in Carbondale will be getting a new fire alarm system this summer – which will cost a total of $2 million – and will be funded through the university housing repair and replacement reserve.

“Originally constructed in 1968, Schneider Hall has been an integral part of our campus residential life,” said Chancellor Lane. “The existing fire alarm system was installed during the summer of 2006, and it is anticipated that the project to replace that fire alarm system will begin in May 2025.”

The board voted to approve the commencement of that project unanimously.

Editors Note: This article has been updated to correct a misspelling of SIU System President Daniel Mahony’s last name. 

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