Northern Star Monday, February 16, 2015
Volume 115, Issue 69
The Truth Shall Bear All Light
Since 1899
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NIU remembers Feb. 14, 2008, shooting victims
Inside The Northern Star is the twiceweekly campus newspaper serving Northern Illinois University and the surrounding community. Classifieds Puzzles Calendar
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Scene 6 Perspective 8 Sports 10
News Student Association is considering adding a historian to its ranks. Read more on Page 3. Scene Is the New Nintendo 3DS XL worth buying? Read the review on Page 7. Perspective The Editorial Board calls for greater student involvement in program prioritization. Page 8. Sports Assistant Athletic Director Morris White explains how he’s trying to boost basketball attendance. Read more on Page 11. Sports Women’s basketball loses at the buzzer. Read about the game on the back page.
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Nick Smith | Northern Star
A girl lays flowers at the base of a memorial stone Saturday in remembrance of the five students killed in the Feb. 14, 2008, Cole Hall shooting. To read about how the students were remembered with a moment of silence, go to Page 3.
SA wants role in prioritization Are students being involved enough in shared governance and program prioritization?
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Doug Baker NIU President
“Shared governance in higher education typically refers to the shared governance between the faculty and the university around issues like curriculum ... then [faculty] have input from other representatives through the various governance procedures, like the Student Association ... .”
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Bill Pitney University Council executive secretary
“The Resource, Space and Budget Committee and the Academic Planning Council would be the two bodies that would help [program prioritization] and each of those bodies has student representatives in them so there’s opportunity for student input, representation there ... . Because of the timeintensive commitment and the fact that the process ... might be drawn out, students perhaps shouldn’t be involved.”
Senate resolution to call for students on task forces Augustin Zehnder Staff writer T @AZehnder
DeKalb | The Student Association Senate criticized the exclusion of student input in program prioritization and the shared governance process in a resolution’s first reading Sunday. The resolution, authored by Ben Donovan, SA director of Governmental Affairs, states excluding students from the task forces that evaluate university programs would violate NIU’s commitment to shared governance. It ends by expressing the SA’s “diminishing faith in the shared governance system as it is currently practiced.” Program prioritization has the goal of ensuring all programs are in line with NIU’s mission and vision. Task forces made up of faculty representatives from all seven colleges and faculty and staff representatives from all 10 divisions will evaluate each program to determine whether it should be cut, merged with another program, decreased or increased in size or given more funding. Provost Lisa Freeman said students will have a say in the criteria the task forces uses as the criteria will be subject to review by the Academic Planning Council and the Resource, Space and Budget Committee, which have student members. But, no students will serve on the task forces themselves to protect them from possible retaliation for the actions of the task force, Freeman said. Students “represent a significant portion of the stakeholders that will be impacted by prioritization,” Donovan said. “Whether that’s students
who will be benefitted by certain programs gaining funding, harmed by programs getting cut, just being neutral if programs stay the same ... we have a lot at stake in this process.” Excluding students from the task forces would go against the spirit of NIU’s shared governance system, according to the resolution. “There’s a huge difference between the students, you know, helping to come up with the criteria for evaluation ... and having a student in those task force rooms, you know, on the inside, listening to the deliberations,” Donovan said. Students are not the only group to be excluded from the task forces, Freeman said, as only tenured faculty are invited to serve. The task forces will work with confidential data that may lead to intimidation from outside forces that want that information, Freeman said. “First, we think they should be focusing their efforts on those things which brought them to the university and not doing hard work in difficult recommendations to the university,” Freeman said. Shared governance is not specifically defined in the NIU constitution, and while governance of NIU is supposed to be shared between faculty, staff and students, the role each group plays is not clearly laid out, Donovan said. So, from a certain viewpoint, Donovan said, the process NIU is using to evaluate programs could technically be considered to be in line with the university’s commitment to shared governance. “I think the argument would be: Well, students are involved instrumentally. They’re working kind of, you know, in an [adviser] role. And that would satisfy” shared governance, Donovan said.
Read Prioritization | Page 5
Are students being involved enough in shared governance and program prioritization?
Joe Frascello SA President
“Yes, the students are being included in the shared governance process; however, there aren’t any specific places in the bylaws that say shared governance is required or necessary. It’s very weak wording regarding shared governance in the university’s bylaws.”
Joe Palmer SA director of Public Affairs
“... I would say probably 90 percent of the time, we’re actually extraordinary at shared governance, but then there are certain situations, like the one discussed in the resolution, where we feel shared governance needs more support than what is being given.”
More views Get more opinions from administrators and Student Association representatives at bit.ly/19mWtol.