DE Politics Editor 28

The debate on whether to allow the University of Illinois in Springfield to become a four-year institution ended Tuesday night when the Illinois Board of Higher Education voted 7-7 on the matter and the school remained a two-year institution by default.

However, some board members and University of Illinois officials say they are optimistic that the matter will come to the board again, that the debate will begin anew, and that next time the board will approve the measure.

Advertisement

At IBHE’s Tuesday meeting, the board’s tie vote resulted in a victory for those opposed to the implementation of the program because there needs to be a constitutional majority for a successful vote.

The proposal called for UIS, an upper-division campus that only offers classes to juniors and seniors, to implement a capital scholars program and become a four-year institution.

The capital scholars program would allow a maximum of 550 students into the four-year program, which would provide a general education curriculum with a focus on leadership and public affairs.

Although SIU has no formal position on the proposal, some administrators expressed concern that a four-year UIS could lead to competition for good students and could create a slippery slope in which other two-year schools, including community colleges, could become four-year institutions.

SIU President Ted Sanders said the SIU Board of Trustees has not taken a position on the issue.

Sanders did say, however, that Molly D’Esposito, an SIU Board of Trustees member and an IBHE member, voted against the proposal.

D’Esposito could not be reached for comment.

Advertisement*

Sanders said that just because some IBHE members voted against the program that does not necessarily indicate that they are opposed to the program.

It’s difficult to determine exactly what was indicated by the 7-7 vote, he said. They may not have been specifically voting against UIS but against the process by which it came to them.

And studying the states’ capacity needs beforehand seems to be a reasonable approach to take and look at this in a broader context.

At its October meeting, the IBHE announced that in January a committee will study the capacity of Illinois, determine the educational needs of universities and decide where four-year institutions are needed.

Many of the seven IBHE members who voted against the proposal said the board should not vote on the issue until after the committee’s report.

Robert English, an IBHE member who voted against the proposal, said the board should first determine how to meet educational needs in Dupage and Lake counties. He said Dupage County has a population greater than 1 million and that there is no four-year institution to meet its needs.

I felt that the situation at UIS was just part of the puzzle that we need to solve for the state of Illinois, he said. There are many other issues facing us in Illinois right now.

He said that if UIS becomes a four-year university, Governor’s State University might want to follow suit. UIS and Governor’s State are the only two-year, upper-division institutions in Illinois.

Robert Barr, another IBHE member, supported the program because he said a program with a focus on politics should appropriately be in Springfield.

He said that after the committee’s study is complete, the proposal to make UIS a four-year institution likely will come back before the board.

It’s hard to say, but I do think once this study is completed some of the people who opposed this idea will come around, Barr said. Eventually they’ll have this program one way or another.

Harry Crisp, yet another IBHE member, disagreed that it is a done deal.

I hope this will not go through without a lot of thought and knowing where and what our needs are, Crisp said. This state has a major problem with resources, and we need to spend our money carefully.

The possibility is always there that this will come back, but so is the possibility that community colleges will come forward and want to be four-year institutions.

He said many community colleges with high enrollments such as the College of Dupage would like to become four-year schools.

Many people in communities think community colleges should be four-year institutions without thoroughly studying the needs of the state, he said. We could do a lot of things to make regions happy but long range the state can’t afford it, and it would hurt all education resources because they have to come from some place.

Ramon Martinez, another board member, said the floodgates argument that other schools immediately will follow suit does not apply because the IBHE and the General Assembly would always have to approve any change in which a two-year college wanted to be a four-year one.

I didn’t see that this would have any effect because those are things to be dealt with in and of themselves, he said. The capital scholars program and its merits made sense irrespective of long-range plans, and I didn’t feel the need to push it off into long-range planning.

Cheryl Peck, a UIS spokeswoman, agreed and said more members will vote for the proposal once the committee’s study is complete.

Obviously we were disappointed it didn’t pass because we wanted to begin to recruit immediately in this program, she said. However, because it was a tie vote and not defeated by a majority, we are very optimistic that we will still get this program approved as early as May.

Some critics may say this will be the way for us to get our foot in door to grow larger, when in fact UIS doesn’t have the intention of growing larger.

Sanders said it is impossible to guess if UIS eventually will become a four-year institution.

It’s certainly not dead and it becoming a four-year school later is a very real possibility, Sanders said, but I don’t know how to predict what the board will do, and until the ballots are cast no one knows.