Repository: UIHistories Project: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1986 [PAGE 270]

EXTRACTED TEXT FROM PAGE:

1985]

UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS

259

The Urbana-Champaign campus is, in several forms, continually evaluating its programs and challenging its assumptions about appropriate education. Consonant with national concerns for the adequacy of general education requirements for undergraduates, the Committee on Educational Policy is reviewing "core curricula" required here and elsewhere. Again this year, the senate and its committees gave considerable attention to policies on admissions. These efforts included discussion and response to the IBHE proposed minimum admissions requirements; preparation of a forthcoming handbook indicating desirable procedures and sources of help for affirmative identification, recruitment, and retention of minority students (and faculty); reports on our extremely low (3.8 percent in 1984) proportion of undergraduates who reside out-ofstate; and Academic Progress and Eligibility Subcommittee of the Athletic Board of Control review of programs related to the admission and academic progress of student-athletes. The Committee on General University Policy has completed its review of a campus policy on academic integrity and is finalizing recommendations on a proposed conflict of interest policy. Endorsement of changes in University patent policy awaits completion of administrative guidelines for their implementation. The committee also has considered policies relevant to classified research at Urbana and will continue to monitor those. After many years and considerable effort, the last revisions of the Statutes suggested in the 1978 Evans Committee Report and recommended by our Statutes Committee have been approved by our senate. Study of the recommendation for a provision in the Statutes mandating faculty participation in planning and resource allocation processes has been initiated by a subcommittee of Senate Council. Our Ad Hoc Committee on Retrenchment reported last fall on its evaluation of the conclusions of the Baur Committee on Retrenchment. These issues bear on the most central facets of educational policy and may require further study following forthcoming reports to University Senates Conference. Many faculty believe that the continuation of current State Universities Retirement System funding policies will lead to severely curtailed operating cost appropriations within the next ten years. In November, we sent a resolution to the General Assembly in support of overriding the governor's veto of S.B. 1223. As you may know, the Illinois Senate voted strongly in favor of override, but the matter did not come before the House. The same bill has been introduced this year as H.B. 115 and S.B. 149; we have voted, and we urge you to join, our support for this bill. We also ask you to join us in supporting H.B. 114 to provide relief to annuitants and survivors who have suffered the results of extreme inflation. Responding to concern by many faculty and teaching assistants who perceive current campus salary distribution practices to be inequitable, the council has commissioned an Ad Hoc Committee on Salary Policy to study faculty and teaching assistant salary policies and distribution practices. In addition, the Equal Opportunity Committee is participating in studies comparing salaries of male and female tenured and tenure track faculty. We appreciate the initiation of efforts by the central administration to devise proposals for enhancement of faculty benefits and hope that some gains may soon be made in that category. The senate and senate council devoted a substantial amount of time to consideration of debt service financing policies. While the immediate issues that prompted that study have been voted upon, there remain a