Although the UI continues to cope with a backlog of overdue payments from the state, the UI Board of Trustees learned at its July 22 meeting in Chicago that there were a few bright spots in the budget year that ended June 30.
Walter Knorr, university vice president and chief financial officer, told trustees an increase in conservation efforts and competitive pricing helped the university end the fiscal year about $16 million below its energy budget.
The UIC Medical Center also had a strong fiscal year, bringing in a net income of about $63 million after expenses.
The state still owes the university about $279 million from fiscal year 2010, Knorr said.
Gov. Pat Quinn signed a law last month that allows the UI and other public universities to take out loans covering as much as three-quarters of the unpaid state appropriations.
University administrators are looking into options for borrowing, Knorr said.
"We are going to continue to see a very slow payment cycle," he said.
Quinn's state budget cut higher education funding by about $96 million for fiscal year 2011, which began July 1.
The cuts reduce the university's fiscal 2011 appropriations by about $46 million -- the amount of one-time federal stimulus funds received in March, Knorr said.
"This is really being looked at as a permanent cut that we have to deal with," he said.
A gradual decrease in state support of higher education has been evident over the past decade, Knorr said. In 2002, the state provided $974 million in funding for the UI. By fiscal year 2011, the amount has decreased to $684 million.
Tuition revenue has been increasing to cover the loss of state funding, he said.
Student financial aid - in the form of federal Pell grants, state Monetary Award Program grants and supplemental university funds - has risen with tuition. Student aid payments, which totaled $148 million in fiscal 2010, will increase to $162 million this year, he said.
Other business
The board approved:
- The appointment of Jan S. Slater, a professor and head of the Charles H. Sandage Department of Advertising and a research professor in the Institute of Communications Research, as interim dean of the College of Media, effective Aug. 16. She succeeds Walt Harrington, who returns to full-time faculty status in the College of Media. Harrington has served as interim dean since August 2009.
- Extending the contract for Jolette D. Law, head varsity coach of women's basketball, for an additional two years, through April 30, 2014.
- A $9 per semester increase in the refundable Sustainable Campus Environment Fee for fiscal year 2011. This fee funds student-allocated projects for clean energy and sustainable campus initiatives. The proposed fee increase from $5 per semester to $14 per semester is based on the results of a student referendum in March.
- The creation of a Master of Arts degree in religion in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and the Graduate College. Students in the program will study historical, ethical, political and philosophical dimensions of religion.
- Establishing the Master of Science degree in health communication in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and the Graduate College. The degree will provide a separate degree program for students interested in the association between communication processes and health outcomes and will attract people from the disciplines of communication, medicine, nursing, pharmacy, psychology, public health and veterinary medicine.
- Reorganizing the departments of educational organization and leadership, educational policy studies, and human resource education into one unit - the department of educational policy, organization and leadership in the College of Education.
- Reorganizing the existing Master of Arts degree in Asian studies and establish the Master of Arts degree in East Asian studies and the Master of Arts degree in South Asian and Middle Eastern studies.
- Renaming the College of Liberal Arts and Science's Bachelor of Science degree in Earth systems, environment and society as the Bachelor of Science degree in Earth, society and environment. The college proposed aligning the school and major name to provide a clear identity for the program.
- Creating an undergraduate minor in Earth, society and environment.
- Revising the Bachelor of Science degree in industrial engineering in the College of Engineering. The revision includes changing the requirements for the degree from 132 credit hours to 128. All engineering undergraduate programs are targeting 128 hours for graduation.
