Repository: UIHistories Project: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1982 [PAGE 401]

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BOARD OF TRUSTEES

[October 15

is necessary, including the filing of lawsuits, to protect the University's interest in the matter of the loss of funds in the University of Illinois Foundation and University. The motion was approved.

EXECUTIVE SESSION ADJOURNED FOR COMMITTEE MEETINGS

The board then recessed for meetings of the Patent Committee, the Finance Committee, and of the Board Meeting as a Committee of the Whole.

BOARD MEETING AS A COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE

President Ikenberry presented the following comments with regard to the pending matter of consolidation of the University of Illinois campuses in Chicago.

Specifically, the question before the board is whether the time has come to unite the University of Illinois programs in Chicago under the leadership of a single chancellor. The time has come for me, as president of the University, to share with the Board of Trustees my thinking. After listening carefully to the debate and pondering the question for several months, I have come to the view that the long-term best interests of the University of Illinois, including the long-term best interests of our Chicago programs, would be best served if the two Chicago campuses were united under the leadership of a single chancellor. I want to explain why I have come to hold this view. First, I believe that, over the long term, uniting our Chicago campuses under a single chancellor would strengthen our ability to gain support, and, conversely, I am concerned if we fail to do so. I refer to ability to gain support from members of the General Assembly, particularly those members who reside in the greater Chicago area and have special interests and concerns for our Chicago-based programs. I refer also to support from the corporate world and from foundations, particularly those corporations and foundations having their headquarters in or special interests in Chicago. Beyond this, however, I refer to the broad base of general support essential to the very lifeblood of a great public university. We will need all of the support we can marshal in the decades to come. Second, it is my belief that a united front in Chicago will improve our ability to compete in that academic arena. We do not function in isolation. Many other distinguished universities and colleges function in the Chicago area, including the University of Chicago, Northern Illinois University, Northwestern University, Rush Medical College, Loyola University, Illinois Institute of Technology, and many others. It is our policy, and will continue to be our policy, to work positively and constructively with these sister universities; at the same time, we must position ourselves over the long term to be able to compete with them constructively in the academic arena. Third, unification of the Chicago campuses, in my judgment, would strengthen the role of the chancellor as he represents the Chicago-based programs both within the University governance structure and externally at the local, state, and national levels. Just as the chancellor at the Urbana-Champaign campus is in a position to represent and speak on behalf of the broad spectrum of University of Illinois programs offered in Urbana-Champaign, so also a chancellor of the University of Illinois at Chicago would be in a better position to speak for the broad range of programs at that campus location. This ability is important as we represent ourselves before the General Assembly, before the Illinois Board of Higher Education, the governor, in corporate board rooms, to the press, and in internal governance councils.