PUBLICATIONS Inside Illinois Vol. 24, No. 21, May 19, 2005

Herman approved as chancellor, White unveils strategic plan

By Sabryna Cornish
UIC News Bureau

At its May 19 meeting in Chicago, the UI Board of Trustees unanimously approved Richard Herman as chancellor of the Urbana campus.

UI President B. Joseph White said an eight-month search was conducted after Nancy Cantor resigned from the position last February to become president of Syracuse University.

“We attracted outstanding candidates from all over,” White said, and faculty, staff and students on campus were very supportive of having Herman, who was named interim chancellor last year, fill the position permanently.

“He received very strong endorsements from everyone in the administration and across the campus,” White said.

At a news conference last month, White announced his intention to endorse Herman as chancellor, who “stepped up and did a superb job in the interim role.”

“I have been awarded a trust that I will not break,” Herman said. “To be chancellor is to always remember that learning, teaching, knowing, discovering, growing, contributing is – plain and simple – the most about the quality of one’s ideas, not the volume of one’s voice.”

A plan for the future

White also unveiled a preliminary plan for the future of the university.

“For a university to have great future, it has to have a plan,” White said.

White met with 75 top-level administrators and faculty in early February “to kick off the strategic planning process.”

The strategic plan will provide a framework for the three campuses to follow so that they have one unified vision of the university’s future, White said.

The university’s mission, according to the draft plan, is “to transform lives and serve society by educating, creating knowledge, and putting knowledge to work on a large scale and with excellence.”

The final plan will contain a vision statement, strategies and guiding values and is expected to contain both quantitative and qualitative measures of the university, such as the university’s projected financial outlook during the next 10 years.

White said it is essential to have three types of plans: a fiscal plan and short- and long-term strategic plans.

The short-term plan will cover approximately five years, while the long-term plan will cover10 or more years.

White’s time plan for developing the finished plan is aggressive: He is planning on meeting again with top university officials in June and presenting a finished framework to the board at its July meeting.

After the main university plan is created, each of the three campuses will draft customized plans by October, with final versions expected by the end of 2005.
Colleges and departments then will be expected to develop strategic plans within their units.

“I want to make sure that colleges and departments have the necessary knowledge to develop and execute the strategic plan,” White said.

White said he is concerned that the integrity of each campus be protected.

“We need to discuss and answer the question of ‘how do we ensure we have guidance for the whole university and still protect the individuality of the campuses?’ ” he said.

White stressed that the process for adopting the plan is “open and transparent,” and said he is encouraging participation at all levels of the university.

Trustee Kenneth Schmidt said he wanted to ensure that the faculty is involved in the process. White assured him that faculty members have a voice in the plan, especially through their governing bodies, such as the campus senates, and said that student leaders and organizations also will be a part of the process.

In other business

• The board approved a $3.6 billion preliminary operating budget for the coming fiscal year, which will begin July 1. The preliminary budget assumed increases of $38.7 million in unrestricted funds and $145 million in restricted funds.
  
  Restricted funds are designated for specific uses by the donor, grantor, contractor or state statute. Unrestricted funds, which comprise State appropriations, royalties and other income, can be allocated at the university’s discretion.
  
  The university is expecting to receive $29.3 million more than last year from tuition increases and $37.3 million more from research grants and contracts; private giving and endowments also are expected to increase by $8 million.
  
  Salary competitiveness will be the top priority in FY06; a general salary increase program between 2.5 percent and 3 percent is planned and will require approximately $25.7 million. Other priority expenditures include $7.4 million to operate new facilities, $5 million for energy price increases and $2 million for deferred maintenance.
  
  The preliminary budget assumed that state appropriations would remain at the same level as the current fiscal year. If state funding is decreased, the university will need to reallocate funds to cover its main priorities, said Stephen Rugg, vice president for administration and comptroller.
  
  Illinois Legislators currently are negotiating the state’s budget for FY06; a final FY06 operating budget for the university will be presented at the trustees’ September meeting.
  
• The newest trustee, David Dorris, attended the meeting Thursday. Dorris, who was appointed by Gov. Rod Blagojevich on March 25, is a lawyer in Bloomington and is a past president of the Illinois Trial Lawyers Association.
  
  Dorris graduated from the UI College of Law in 1973 and specializes in personal injury litigation.
  
• Application fees for UI graduate students will increase $10 next year – to $50 for domestic students and to $60 for international students. Chester Gardner, vice president for academic affairs, said the application fees have not been increased in 10 years, and he does not anticipate that the increases will result in fewer graduate applications.
  
• The trustees renewed a one-year contract for maintenance and upgrades to the Banner Software System with SCT. The original contract was for five years, but trustees amended it to only one year after some trustees said they did not feel comfortable with awarding such a large contract for “proprietary software.”
  
  Trustee Robert Sperling said the university has a responsibility to seek out other firms and see if they can do the required work for less.
  
  “We need to find out if these people are holding us hostage because they are the only vendor,” said trustee Niranjan Shah.
  
  University comptroller Steven Rugg said there is a cap on how much SCT can raise its fees each year but said he would investigate other alternatives.
  
  “The board is looking to determine whether we have explored all our available options,” chairman Lawrence Eppley said.
  
• The trustees approved a $12 million increase to the budget for the South Campus Development project at the Chicago campus, raising the total project budget to $124 million. Although staff and project managers anticipated previously that the project might cost 20 percent more than initially budgeted because of unexpected increases in steel, steel components and other construction materials, cuts were made during the design process that brought the increase down to $12 million, said Lyle Wachtel, university associate vice president for facilities planning and programs.
  
• UI President B. Joseph White said he will bring a resolution to the board at its July meeting to amend the procedure for bidding on professional services.
  
  Currently, the board needs to approve professional services if they total $500,000 or more. White is recommending changing that number to $200,000, giving the board more oversight of the university’s finances.
  
  “I will move to make that an operating procedure,” White said.
  

Back to Index