The UI Board of Trustees on Nov. 18 unanimously approved President Michael Hogan’s plan to restructure the university administration.
Trustees also learned that as of the date of the meeting, the state was nearly $400 million behind in payments to the university: about $11 million from fiscal year 2010, which ended June 30, and $384 million of this year’s appropriation.
The administrative changes, approved at the meeting on the Chicago campus, will:
Add vice president to the titles of the three campus chancellors.
Create the post of vice president for health affairs, who reports to the president with a dotted reporting line to the chancellor.
Expand the duties of the vice president for technology and economic development to include research, and change the position’s title to vice president for research.
The plan defines the chain of administrative command, coordinates collaborations across campuses and creates opportunities to generate new revenue, Hogan said.
“Nothing in these changes is intended to diminish the authority of our chancellors or the mission and identity of each campus,” Hogan said.
“These and other reforms aim to reduce administrative overhead and return the savings to our research and teaching missions.”
Senate leaders from all three campuses weighed in on the plan, holding meetings to gauge campus opinions, and reported their findings to the University Senates Conference.
Matthew Wheeler, chair of the University Senates Conference, told the board the campus senates failed to achieve consensus on the proposed changes, including the vice president-chancellor title.
“There is general support for the goals of the board, but at the same time, we have some specific concerns,” said Wheeler, a professor of animal sciences on the Urbana campus.
“Changing our governing documents is very serious business.”
Adding the title of vice president to the chancellors’ titles will clearly define their roles, said board chair Christopher Kennedy.
“Our hope is to add vice president to the chancellor titles so that internal and external audiences will all understand that the chancellor reports to the president,” he said.
“We really need to protect the university from an overreaching board, who feel like they can reach out to the chancellor and reach into the chancellor’s business. We need to institutionalize that role for future boards.”
The Urbana-Champaign Senate unanimously approved a written response to the board that rejected the reorganization plan.
Town hall meetings were held on the Urbana campus to gather feedback on the changes. The U-C Senate statement said the plan does not explain the degree of independence each campus would retain as part of the “one university” model, nor does it include enough details about the implementation, costs and potential savings.
“We are not saying ‘no’ to any changes, or even to some of these changes, developed and implemented in a different way. But we are saying ‘no’ to them in this form and at this time,” the Urbana-Champaign Senate response said.
The UIC Senate, which held town hall meetings and hosted a vote on the changes to gather feedback from the campus, asked trustees to postpone the vote until the board’s March 23 meeting.
The UIC town hall meetings showed faculty support for a vice chancellor for health affairs, but employees also expressed concerns that the proposed restructuring might not ease budget problems and needed more time for consideration.
The Springfield campus senate supported the proposed changes.
“Our response has been pretty positive and supportive — the mood on our campus is very much forward-looking, and we want to be able to move forward,” said Tih-Fen Ting, chair of the UIS executive committee and a professor of environmental studies.