2020 Vision Committee

Report
and
Recommendations

September 2002

2020 VISION COMMITTEE

FINAL REPORT AND RECOMMENDATIONS

The mark of an educated person is his or her ability to
meet the future, not necessarily to predict it.
(President James E. Walker)

Following his "Shared Vision" address before the Southern Illinois University (SIU) community on September 20, 2001, President James E. Walker announced his desire to seek the advice of an external group of educators and community leaders. Dr. Walker charged this 2020 Vision Committee, chaired by former Senator Paul Simon, to develop recommendations to chart the way for SIU as it moves into the 21st century, to ensure that it remains at the forefront of education, able to meet the needs of those it serves.

In his charge, Dr. Walker noted that the world of higher education is rapidly changing, and the rules seem to be changing as well. The future of SIU, he explained, depends on how well it responds to the challenges brought about by these changes.

In concert with campus planning activities, Dr. Walker asked the 2020 Vision Committee to provide advice on five overarching areas:

• Given the history of SIU, its two campuses, and its multiple locations, and having an understanding of its strengths and weaknesses, what are the impediments--both internal and external--to its becoming a successful change leader? How can SIU best position itself to excel in teaching, research, and service in the 21st century?
• What do you see as the university's challenges in the following areas: academic culture; student culture; administrative culture; athletic culture; state government culture; and other cultures?
• On the basis of your individual and collective experiences, what attributes are essential for SIU to establish the desired outcomes for an enriched environment of learning, discovery, and civic engagement? What set of guiding principles or purposes will generate the most favorable conditions for addressing these challenges? What are the characteristics of a fully engaged university?
• Believing that the path of change is never linear, but shaped by changing agendas as well as unintended events and consequences, what values must SIU's family of students, faculty, staff, alumni, friends, administrators, and trustees articulate to accomplish their collective goals? What advice can you impart that will assist us on our journey to engagement?
• Given the geographic location of its two campuses, what challenges and opportunities exist for SIU? What can the university do to take better advantage of SIUE's proximity to St. Louis? What can it do to overcome SIUC's distance from major metropolitan areas? Given the lessening political clout of the southern Illinois region, what strategies should SIU utilize to reach policymakers and opinion leaders in Springfield and Washington, D.C.?

In responding to President Walker's charge, we, the 2020 Vision Committee, were assisted with information offered by the President and the two Chancellors, who served as ex-officio members of the committee, and the able leadership of former Senator Paul Simon, who led our discussions and directed our efforts.

We commend President James Walker and Chancellors Walter Wendler and David Werner for their leadership as well as for their reasoned approach to the issues and challenges ahead. Like them, we believe that SIU's heritage will play a significant role in shaping and directing its future, making its academic programs distinctive and excellent, bringing greater visibility to the university, and providing a framework for integrating its programs, scholarship, and community relationships. We believe that SIU's vision for 2020 can and should be presented and understood as faithful to its heritage, its core convictions, its academic excellence, and its civic engagement.

The intent of our observations is to provide the university community with a sense of direction without providing detailed instructions for specific activities. Our recommendations and observations have been written in general terms with the expectation that, as appropriate, the President and Chancellors will develop more specific operational plans. We believe that effective planning is a process of selection, not attempting to realize every worthwhile endeavor, but choosing among competing needs, those goals and objectives that can have the most lasting value.

What follows is a set of observations and recommendations presented to the SIU community with our best wishes. They are based on a careful reading of university documents; discussions facilitated by former Senator Paul Simon; the input provided by President Walker and Chancellors Wendler and Werner; and the personal experiences we naturally drew upon as current or former members of higher education, the business community, and the public policy sector, and for some of us, as alumni of SIU. We wish to point out that the committee claims no special insight into the soul of SIU, nor do we feel ourselves in any way omniscient in the observations and recommendations that we bring forward for consideration by the academic community.

The Framework for Excellence

If a university is to have direction, it must have an institutional vision. If it is to succeed in the realization of that vision, it must have the ability to communicate that vision to others, formulate realistic objectives, and create effective means to realize those objectives. It is the President of SIU, working in conjunction with the campus Chancellors, who must chart the basic course of SIU and articulate the institutional vision on behalf of the teaching, learning, research, and service missions of the university.

A large part of what any university markets to prospective students and faculty is its other students and faculty. Everyone wants to attend institutions with high-quality students and faculty. Both students and faculty learn better, teach better, and research better in the company of those who intellectually challenge them. Insofar as education is the fundamental mission of SIU, its vision of the future encompasses the need to implement best practices enrollment management strategies, including vigorously recruiting gifted and talented students from across the state and beyond, and to create an intellectual environment conducive to attracting and retaining outstanding faculty in all its chosen disciplines and fields. For SIU, creating such an environment entails reinforcing the values that originally shaped it. Those values include an overall commitment to learning, discovery, and civic engagement; a heritage of openness, opportunity, and diversity; a commitment to excellence in all that it does; promoting and sustaining basic and applied research and other forms of creative activity; encouraging internationalism; maintaining a tradition of regional service through economic and community development; supporting the health needs of its many communities; and sustaining its cultural life through the sponsorship of the fine and performing arts.

These common values form a philosophic framework for goal-setting, but the character of SIU is shaped also by the environment in which it exists and in which it acts out its basic values. The physical beauty of SIU's campuses is a fact noted by virtually every visitor. That beauty, joining as it does with the Southern Illinois landscape, is one feature that distinguishes SIUC and SIUE from most public universities in Illinois and the nation.

SIU functions as one of the most prominent assets in Illinois' educational inventory, enrolling more than 34,000 students each year from all 102 counties in Illinois, every state, and 129 countries; offering 4 associate, 127 bachelor's, 118 master's, and 32 doctoral and professional degree programs; conferring more than 8,300 degrees annually; employing more than 14,300 people in Illinois; providing medical, dental, and nursing care at clinics throughout southern Illinois; providing instructional media service to 35,000 K-12 students in central and southern Illinois; offering 232 capstone programs with community colleges; operating four public radio stations and two public television stations; and enrolling 5,400 minority students and 2,000 international students.

SIU's challenge is to create and maintain the components that will allow the university to enter the new century as the embodiment of the special kind of excellence to which it aspires. Adequate investment, quality governance, creativity, and strategic management are the keys to its success, and it is the academic community's investment in its future that will determine whether or not the university is up to the challenge.

The future of SIU must be guided by more than a broad and generally unstated sense of purpose. If any institution of higher education is to make effective use of increasingly scarce resources, decisions about those resources must reflect prior determinations on goals and priorities. Institutions must not only be more selective in their choices as to what is important but also ensure that those choices are subsequently reflected in budgetary decisions and monitored regarding their continued investment.

While performing its educational role in the advancement of knowledge, SIU also serves many local and regional needs, drawing its student population heavily and broadly from Illinois while at the same time pulling from other states and foreign countries; offering a variety of cultural activities designed to contribute to the development of students and also benefit area residents; offering life-long learning opportunities for in-state and out-of-state populations; embarking on scholarly inquiries that result in a better understanding of a myriad of issues; and serving as a major element in regional and state economic development, inclusive of being a principal employer and major purchaser of goods and services.

SIU is a complex institution striving to balance effectively its traditions with necessary and beneficial change. Although its history and future are inexorably tied to the region known as Southern Illinois, SIU has become a significant statewide resource with programs and resources that are of national and international importance. Its reputation is well recognized and its list of notable graduates and accomplishments is lengthy.

SIU's success will clearly hinge upon the judicious use of available resources and increased state and private support, but it will also depend upon its ability to close ranks and work together on behalf of common interests. The committee is unanimous in its conviction that SIU can succeed in enhancing its quality, even in difficult times, if it can maintain the excellence of its faculty and muster the collective will to cope with the challenges that now face higher education. In view of this, the committee recommends the following:

• Both SIUC and SIUE should continue their long-standing and well-deserved reputation as campuses committed to educational opportunity and to providing student financial aid to offset the rapidly rising costs of attendance. No student should have to leave SIU for financial reasons only.
• Both SIUC and SIUE should increase their enrollment of high school graduates who rank in the top quintile of their classes. This should include the establishment of benchmarks, the allocation of dollars for scholarships, and more effective recruitment efforts.
• Both SIUC and SIUE need to attract a higher quality of student on entry; increase the retention and completion rates of all students; work closely with community colleges to enhance articulation and transfer; make better use of the Illinois learning standards and the Prairie State Achievement Examination; institute a reliable assessment program; and develop "learning compacts" upon admission that make every student aware of the university's expectations.
• Both SIUC and SIUE should ensure that their curricular and co-curricular experiences, so central to the SIU experience, engage both the heart and mind of its community of students, faculty, staff, alumni, and supporters.

Global Education

The events of September 11 have demonstrated dramatically that while SIU is rooted in the communities of Southern and Southwestern Illinois, its faculty, staff, and students must increasingly be engaged in and conversant with the human drama taking place on the global stage. As the university seeks to enrich the experiences of its students by connecting them to their communities through enhanced internship opportunities, civic engagement, and volunteerism, it must do so in a manner that demonstrates the myriad connections that exist between Illinois' communities and the world.

Illinois is the nation's sixth leading exporter of merchandise; has more Fortune 500 companies than any other state but New York; is residence to seventy-five international banks; employs over 700,000 Illinoisans in international trade-related industries; trades 60 percent of the world's options on the Chicago Board of Trade, the Board of Options, and the Mercantile Exchange; offers more direct flights to world capitals than any other airport in the nation; and is home away from home to more than 20,000 international students who contribute $400 million to the state's economy and create an estimated 4,000 jobs.

SIU has long been a place where ethnic and cultural diversity as well as diversity of opinion have been prized elements in its educational environment. For more than forty years, self-selected groups of faculty, staff, students, and alumni have made the world their sphere of influence. Their efforts have resulted in over a hundred linkages with universities and agencies around the world; numerous multipurpose short-term and long-term training grants funded by USAID, NSF, and other public and private agencies; the founding of a fourteen-year-old branch campus in Niigata, Japan; leadership in international projects such as Peace Corps training; government-sponsored summer institutes on the U.S. political system; off-campus programs in Hong Kong, Singapore, and Jamaica; and most recently, the beginnings of an educational exchange with the Republic of Cuba.

Given SIU's illustrative record of internationalism, the committee makes the following recommendations:

• Both SIUC and SIUE should raise the level of their student participation in global education through enhanced study abroad programs; a more international curriculum; and increasing their international student populations.
• Both SIUC and SIUE should identify programs and services where shared expertise and economies of scale make for stronger international programs and improved efficiencies.
• As the SIUC community nears its 150th anniversary, the campus should consider establishing new area studies programs and setting higher benchmarks for international research and training grants and contracts.
• SIUC should continue to support its Niigata campus, using it as a springboard for student research and internship opportunities.
• SIUC should consider establishing an International Center as a focal point for the global education aspects of the campus, including a more comprehensive support system for international students, faculty, and visitors. The services of such a center, where appropriate, should also be made available to SIUE students and faculty.

State Goals

The Illinois Board of Higher Education established a state agenda known as The Illinois Commitment consisting of six goals. These include higher education will help Illinois business and industry sustain strong economic growth; higher education will join elementary and secondary education to improve teaching and learning at all levels; no Illinois citizen will be denied an opportunity for a college education because of financial need; Illinois will increase the number and diversity of citizens completing training and education programs; Illinois colleges and universities will hold students to even higher expectations for learning and will be accountable for the quality of academic programs and the assessment of learning; and Illinois colleges and universities will continually improve productivity, cost-effectiveness, and accountability in ways that are outcomes based.

SIU has been deeply committed to serving the state and its local communities through contributions to workforce development, strengthening public education, health care, economic development, social welfare, environmental conservation, culture and the arts. Each campus offers a myriad of programs, services, and opportunities that engage its faculty and students in local schools, community agencies, and private sector activities. New ventures, new partnerships, and new ways of meeting these needs will be critical despite the fact that public resources are excruciatingly tight. In light of these activities, the committee recommends:

• The Illinois Commitment agenda must be kept alive by a strong affirmation of its worth and a specific action agenda from the university.

Service

The St. Louis metropolitan area and the southernmost communities of Illinois have benefited over the years from SIU's wealth of talented faculty, staff, and students and their many creative ideas and services. The needs of these areas have not diminished. Today, as in former years, the southern and southwestern counties remain pockets of poverty in need of economic development, better health care services, more effective schools, and support for critical infrastructure problems. As a result of these outstanding needs, the committee recommends:

• Both SIUC and SIUE need to reaffirm their teaching, learning, service, and research commitment to the counties of Southern and Southwestern Illinois.

Libraries

The fulfillment of SIU's teaching, learning, research, and service missions requires an outstanding library support system that provides access to the full range of intellectual resources, regardless of format or physical location. More than just a repository of books and information, the library is the intellectual center of the university and its window to learning and the advancement of knowledge. Today, libraries are undergoing profound changes as a result of digital technologies that continue to broaden access, linking more people to ever widening amounts of information, at ever greater distances. Accordingly, the committee recommends:

• SIU's libraries must stay abreast of emerging technologies to ensure cost-effective ubiquitous access and their usefulness in the advancement of knowledge and the enhancement of the educational experience.

Technology

Changes in research tools and methodologies in many disciplines and professions have resulted from the spread of information technology throughout the disciplines. In addition, breakthroughs in distance learning technology have removed the capacity constraints that universities traditionally have operated under. Now, physical facilities no longer limit the size of a student body. Asynchronous learning networks enable students to learn any time, at any pace, on any path, and any place, free from the physical constraints of time and space. The university has the ability, therefore, to increase its capacity to enhance the campus learning experience and to reach new markets, both for life-long learners and for special placebound populations. In view of these changes, the committee recommends the following:

• Both SIUC and SIUE should ensure that every degree program--both undergraduate and graduate--offers e-capability to their students.
• Both SIUC and SIUE should identify those programmatic areas where they can enhance their reputation, market penetration, and name recognition by utilizing the newer technologies to serve a broader community of learners and scholars.

Academics: Undergraduate Studies

The worth of a college degree lies in the intellectual development each student achieves. College life is intellectual as well as social, with the integration of these two elements being at the nexus of a successful, balanced academic career. This requires ample experiences in all aspects of student life: the classroom, individual faculty contacts, social interactions, campus events, and research and service opportunities.

Higher education will be fundamentally different in the years to come. Current pressures with respect to technology, shifting demographics, rising costs, and changing workforce needs will drive much of this change. Knowing that the university cannot be everything to everyone, it needs to give priority to those programs where its strengths continue to offer an advantage. Consistent with this is the recognition that not all of SIU's degree programs are equal and that the price for academic equality is impoverishment for all.

It is in SIU's classrooms, offices, and laboratories, on the lawns and sidewalks, on the playing fields and recreation sites, and in the residence halls that relationships are forged, ideas are challenged, and lives are changed. This experience, to be qualitative and lasting, requires the creation of common spaces for students, faculty, and staff to interact; venues for improved student life; on- and off-campus leadership opportunities; service-learning initiatives; and debates, lectures, symposia, and artistic experiences.

Athletics not only is a source of entertainment, it also creates institutional visibility and forges links between the university and the many communities it serves. Athletic championships tend to produce significant increases in student inquiries for admission. However, SIU must take seriously its commitment to the athlete as student, and this commitment should continue into the future on the assumption that student-athletes are students first, and athletes second.

SIUC has recently renewed its sense of responsibility to undergraduates, striking a productive and appropriate balance by providing undergraduate students with opportunities to become involved in research. As SIUC proceeds down this laudable path, it should seek to enroll undergraduates of exceptional ability and special talent. In keeping with this focus and selectivity, SIUC should maintain high performance expectations of its students, faculty, and staff.

Problem-based learning has been a distinctive part of SIUC's educational profile, particularly at the School of Medicine, where it promotes active learning and connecting concepts to applications. This inquiry-based learning process has drawn national and international attention to the university.

Since an increasing number of undergraduate students attend more than one institution, universities are challenged to ensure that ample information is available to students and parents regarding articulation and transfer opportunities and that thoughtful attention is given to the proper advising and mentoring of students. The challenge to universities whose students have taken courses at multiple institutions is to ensure that students experience an integrated educational experience and not just a collection of disparate courses.

Non-traditional students are fast becoming the majority on today's campuses. No longer does higher education occur during a single period following graduation from high school. A growing percentage of students are now of an older, less mobile variety who are more likely to study in the communities in which they work. Many have a strong sense of their educational needs and bring with them a demand for innovative curricula, alternative delivery systems, and new kinds of degrees. The committee therefore recommends the following:

• In fulfilling their promise as Southern Illinois' most essential, relevant, and valuable educational resource, both SIUC and SIUE should build on those "signature" programs that have regional, national, or world-class excellence or potential. Those that do not or cannot demonstrate such excellence should be assessed for their sustainability. Weak programs should either be strengthened or eliminated.
• Both SIUC and SIUE should define the attributes of their respective graduates and infuse and monitor the effectiveness of the university's curricula, programs, and services in realizing those attributes.
• Both SIUC and SIUE should become nationally recognized leaders in demonstrating the value-added aspects of their educational experience.
• Problem-based learning should be expanded beyond the School of Medicine and SIUC's core curriculum to other appropriate undergraduate and graduate programs at both campuses, where students can be taught to discover, create, and apply, and where the teacher is both an expert and a mentor.
• Both SIUC and SIUE should encourage and support undergraduate research opportunities for their students.

Academics: Graduate Studies

Becoming a nationally recognized leader in selected areas of graduate education and research is no small feat. Necessarily, certain programs must be targeted in order to achieve preeminence in a few areas rather than moderate strength in many areas. Departments, centers, and institutes must be challenged to produce plans for focused excellence, and those subsequently selected for such excellence must be given the resources to sustain their efforts.

The historical nucleus of SIU remains the Carbondale campus. It is both a center of research and graduate education, as well as a state and national resource in numerous areas important to the state and nation. SIUC defines its responsibilities and measures its accomplishments in reference to national peers.

SIUC is a national leader in certain disciplinary and research areas. Areas of exemplary reputation include Anthropology, Psychology, and Zoology at the doctoral level; Rehabilitation and Counseling at the master's level; and Aviation, Automotive, and Radio and Television at the baccalaureate level. Additional areas include problem-based learning pedagogy, coal research, Dewey studies, cooperative wildlife research, soybean research, materials technology, archeological studies, advanced friction studies, and the Public Policy Institute.

Research centers and institutes have been extremely successful in large part because they have brought researchers from different departments and colleges together to address problems. In the future, SIUC should engage in more interdisciplinary work, taking advantage of new opportunities such as those already evident in the neurosciences, materials science, environmental sciences, and public policy. In view of these matters, the committee recommends:

• SIUC should seek to achieve preeminence in a few areas rather than moderate strength in many areas; programs that are underenrolled or that are not strong enough to be competitive should be eliminated.
• SIUC should impose high standards for faculty appointments to the Graduate School; provide faculty members, particularly younger ones, with research support to enable them to build strong careers; and base decisions of reappointment to the Graduate School on evidence of sustained scholarly activity.
• SIUC must ensure that its centers of excellence are appropriately funded and that its key personnel pursue leadership roles--regional, national, and international--in their areas of expertise.
• SIUC should increase the number of its graduate fellowships and assistantships and should encourage and reward grant and contract activities that support graduate students.
• SIUE should continue to emphasize graduate programs that are based on institutional strengths, meet regional needs, and serve primarily working adults.

Faculty Excellence

Universities that are premier in their respective Carnegie categories offer salaries that are competitive with the best in their class; compete for the most talented, diverse, energetic, and dedicated faculty; and create a welcoming and supportive environment for students.

What constitutes faculty development has changed, requiring more comprehensive and visible structures to support faculty growth and development, including the recognition of differences among beginning faculty, mid-career faculty, and senior faculty. Areas for which faculty have typically received little preparation include governance, public service, and mentoring.

The traditional boundaries of the classroom are changing as a result of the Internet, e-mail, and other technologies that allow the possibility for varied and more personalized faculty-student interaction. New models now recognize both individual and collective departmental accomplishments that reinforce the mission and goals of the college and university.

Faculty service is an essential ingredient in the mission of any university, but it is also one of the least understood and appreciated components in the triad of teaching, scholarship, and service. As universities struggle with uncertain state financial support and increasing dependence on alternative funding sources, faculty are asked to assume expanded roles in institutional strategic planning and community relations by assisting in the recruitment of students, reaching out to alumni, and participating in fund-raising. Given these changing patterns of workload, universities are challenged to link traditional faculty values with institutional mission, giving appropriate attention to the professional development needs of the faculty in their expanded roles, and building stronger linkages between service and the reward system.

At most universities, and SIU is no different, there seems to be a disconnect between the core values of the faculty, where primary loyalty is to the discipline, and the competing values of institutional mission and strategic priorities. The challenge is to link collegial faculty values with institutional mission and strategic priorities in ways that build a sense of mutual appreciation as well as a stronger collaborative form of governance and an infrastructure for continuing success.

The commonly accepted definition of shared governance has not changed since the 1966 Statement on Government of Colleges and Universities, jointly issued by the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), the American Council on Education (ACE), and the Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges (AGB). However, in practice, the system has become cumbersome and unwieldy, due in part to the redistribution of decision-making authority to state and federal entities as well as accrediting boards--all external to the institutions. In addition, universities have become increasingly fragmented, thus impeding the sort of participatory culture that shared governance requires. These changed conditions require adaptations in order that the faculty remains centrally involved in shared governance.

SIUC's aspiration to enhance its national reputation through an emphasis on high-quality graduate and undergraduate programs and a productive research and creative faculty will not be realized if the faculty, staff, and students continue to suffer from poor self-esteem. Ironically, the further one travels from Carbondale, the more the reputation of its programs increases. This fact seems to be ignored by a portion of the campus community who choose to be critical of the institution and of each other, often to the point of incivility. SIUC is a much stronger and more vibrant institution than some members of its academic community are willing to admit. Accordingly, the committee recommends:

• Both SIUC and SIUE should emphasize the "culture" of quality teaching and learning at all levels by recognizing it more effectively in the reward structure, encouraging its linkage with quality scholarship, and heightening the prestige of their outstanding teacher-scholars.
• For SIUC and SIUE to become premier universities in their respective Carnegie categories, achieving competitive salaries for their faculty and staff must be given priority attention. This goal should be achieved even at the price of creating slightly smaller institutions.
• Through their respective governance processes, both SIUC and SIUE should institute a system of post-tenure review and more rigorous standards of teaching and scholarly/creative excellence for retention, promotion, and tenure.
• Both SIUC and SIUE should consider alternative ways of reconfiguring work assignments in a manner appropriate to the discipline and educational goals and which breaks the mold of the "one-size-fits-all" model for configuring, evaluating, and rewarding faculty work.
• Both SIUC and SIUE should examine their decision-making processes for purposes of improving consultation and efficiency while maintaining the traditional values of shared governance.
• The SIUC academic community needs to take greater pride in its accomplishments.

Cooperation

In no state can public universities take support for education for granted. Like every other public university, SIU must continue to campaign vigorously for the funds to accomplish the goals it establishes for itself. SIU has already demonstrated its leadership in the development of a strong financial planning process as well as a "best practices" approach to management. Given the impending period of budget stringencies, SIU must be prepared to make better use of the funds it has, and that will demand more rather than less cooperation between the two campuses and between SIU and other public universities in the state.

We perceive a growing acceptance that closer ties between the two campuses are both desirable and needed if SIU is to maintain its standing as a major educational enterprise. The advantages of greater cooperation have not been fully explored by SIU's academic community. While the reasons for this are complex, and include an uneasiness about possible domination of one over the other, they nevertheless need to be addressed in a spirit of mutual trust and respect. The existing successes in financial planning, risk management, and purchasing can serve as guideposts to greater cooperation between the two campuses in areas of teaching and research.

One of SIU's best kept secrets is its many programs in health and health-related areas. These programs range from associate degrees in dental technology and physical therapy assistant; to baccalaureate programs in dental hygiene, respiratory therapy, health care management, physician assistant, and nursing; to master's degrees in pharmacology, nurse practitioner, nurse anesthesiologist; to MD, DDM, a newly approved Pharm D, and several joint degree programs; along with a small number of very successful research and service centers and institutes. These programs and services are dispersed across central and southern Illinois--from Alton and Springfield, to Edwardsville, East St. Louis, Carbondale, Decatur and Quincy. On the basis of the benefits evident in these matters, the committee recommends:

• There is potential in SIU for more cooperative ventures. The university should think in new and more innovative ways that include collaborative efforts between schools and programs--even the sharing of some limited numbers of faculty--and the development of new coordinated degree programs across the two campuses where there is a clear need and a value-added as a result of such coordination.
• Given the prospect of scarce state dollars and an increasing reliance upon alternative funding sources, it is essential for the university to identify ways to further reduce its administrative and operating costs.
• Both SIUC and SIUE should seek to maximize the strengths of their decentralized health and health-related programs through greater use of telecommunication and the establishment of an Area Health Education Consortium (AHEC) for central, southern, and western Illinois.

Trustees and Senior Administration

No matter how great the changes occurring in universities today, the faculty are central to the achievement of institutional mission. This is as true for SIU as it is for every other college and university. Although a participatory mode of governance is in place, role distinctions have led to misunderstandings and mistrust. Members of the SIU community feel, whether with reason or not, that they must compete for resources and that bureaucratic requirements of reporting are smothering.

The mission statement of SIU provides the academic community with a framework upon which to decide what and where the institution should be in the future. Along with a mission statement, clearly defined strategic goals, supported by specific objectives and action steps, serve as the institution's road map, keeping everyone focused toward shared values.

The principal challenge to the leadership of SIU is to unify faculty, students, staff, and the quarter million alumni who comprise the greater SIU community, in a common sense of purpose.

As a result of the 1964 Reynolds v. Sims Supreme Court decision regarding voter representation in state legislatures (one-person-one-vote), southern Illinois no longer carries the political clout that it once mustered in the Illinois General Assembly. The political and economic power of the state, which is now vested in Chicago and the suburban collar counties, requires southern Illinois to build partnerships and coalitions with those outside its region.

SIUC's enrollment has decreased in the last ten years from a high of 24,766 in 1992 to 21,598 in 2001. Currently there is an effort underway to identify its desired size and its proportion of graduate to undergraduate students. SIUC should not overlook the fact that adjustments in student population will also affect the size and scope of its campus substructures. The burdens of administration, which exist by the fact that SIUC is a large university, cannot simply be removed. They are part of the process of doing business. Nevertheless, SIUC should not overlook the fact that adjustments in student population should also result in adjustments in organization and staffing.

We recognize that demographic and economic factors, along with the growing maturity of SIUE, are transforming it into an increasingly important fixture in the SIU family. It is our expectation that its significance will continue to grow as it moves into the 21st century. Nevertheless, SIUE cannot accept many more students without a significant infusion of new general revenue. Tuition income alone is not sufficient.

Accordingly, the committee recommends the following:

• The SIU trustees must ensure that the institutions for which they have stewardship (a) articulate clear expectations; (b) provide professional development opportunities and services that support these expectations; (c) regularly assess progress toward the accomplishment of SIU's mission and goals; and (d) recognize and reward contributions to the attainment of those goals.
• Both SIUC and SIUE should initiate a capital campaign as quickly as is feasible and concentrate their early efforts on improving the quality of students through the use of best practices enrollment management strategies, including increased merit-based scholarships, more need-based aid, an increase in graduate assistantships and fellowships, and the creation of endowed and partially endowed chairs for teacher-scholars.
• Both SIUC and SIUE need to build a much closer connection with their alumni, collecting, maintaining, and analyzing information to better understand them, serve them, and solicit their support. This includes developing programs that offer alumni more visible opportunities for career networking, degree updating, mentoring of current students, fund-raising, philanthropy, and advocacy.
• SIU needs to have a strong presence in Chicago, the collar counties, and Springfield; with the Illinois General Assembly and the Office of the Governor; with the Illinois Board of Higher Education; and with the Illinois delegation in Washington.
• SIU must build strategic alliances with potential partners and develop a strong grassroots support system that includes faculty, staff, students, alumni, friends, and public and private sector leaders.
• SIU should embark on an aggressive marketing plan that, when implemented, will create a more positive identification and name recognition for the two campuses, their programs, and their dedicated faculty, staff, alumni, and supporters.
• SIU should periodically review its mission statement to ensure relevance into the new century.
• SIUC should undertake a process to determine its appropriate enrollment size and academic program mix, and once having done so, institute the mechanisms necessary to reengineer its support structure. It also should seek to answer the question: What adjustments in its organization and administrative size are desirable for the continued good health and progress of SIUC?
• SIUE should cap its enrollment at about 13,000 students, maintaining a proportionate student-to-faculty ratio and emphasizing the delivery of high-quality undergraduate programs along with selective graduate and professional degrees, including a small number of Ph.D. programs taught in cooperation with SIUC.