Higher education in Illinois: a 'system of systems' manages the knowledge industry

KNOWLEDGE is power. And our Federal system still lodges major control of the nation's multibillion dollar "knowledge industry" in the state capitals.

By any possible measurement of size (dollars appropriated, students enrolled, research carried out, etc.) the knowledge industry developed by Illinois is surpassed by only a couple of other states. The management apparatus which the State has built for operating its share of this industry is both immense and complex. Yet even in the halls of the Illinois legislature and in state executive offices it is difficult to find anyone who can identify the levers of power in this allimportant area of government.

As 1975 begins, it is critical that state leaders and a broad section of the citizenry understand how the state supported institutions of knowledge are managed in Illinois. Retrenchment in funding for these institutions and the tremendous increase in operational costs (such as fuel supply) in a time of inflation have generated proposals to update the State's ongoing "Master Plan" for higher education. A major question in Illinois, then, is whether new conditions require dramatic changes in those institutions and agencies which manage this knowledge industry.

Higher education: a public utility?
Most educators wince at the characterization of higher education as an industry. Indeed, colleges and universities have been accorded certain special privileges, and hopefully these unique perquisites will not be disturbed. But as dark Kerr. the distinguished former president of the University of California, explains, higher education has become a quasipublic utility:

"... with its prices (tuition and budget) controlled outside the campus, its services (functions) specified, and its customers (through admissions policies) determined; and with outside agencies also prepared to hear complaints about prices, services, and the acceptance and rejection of customers. The campus is less part of free enterprise and more part of the controlled public domain" ("Foreword" to The Multicampus University by Eugene C. Lee and Frank M. Bowen, 1971).

If our institutions of higher education are now quasipublic utilities the task of educating the citizenry to the complexities of their management is of signal importance. In Illinois, the place to begin this discussion is with the State Constitution itself.

No constitutional recognition
Some states take pride in the fact that their constitutions recongnize their colleges and universities. For good or for bad, the Illinois Constitution makes no substantive mention of institutions of higher education. The knowledge industry is whatever the General Assembly says it is. In Illinois the Constitution would not prohibit the General Assembly from changing the name of the University of Illinois (U. of I.) to Lincoln Memorial University and/or combining it with Southern Illinois University, or refashioning the U. of 1. Chicago Circle Campus into a new Fort Dearborn University, or even eliminating any of these institutions.

As absurd as modifications of this kind appear, they point up the absolute authority over the Illinois knowledge industry vested in the General Assembly. Literature on the Illinois college and university system is generally high in its praise of Illinois legislators for their determination to allow the lay boards latitude in handling educational policy within the budgetary limitations ap proved by the General Assembly.

Stability or lack of attention?
This "hands off policy has been cited as healthy by a majority educators. But critics of the Illinois structure argue that the failure of the General Assembly to concern itself with basic organizational arrangements in the dramatic growth period since the end of World War II has left the State with a crazyquilt pattern which both wastes resources and obscures operations from an innocent public.

The question of management or governance will soon be reviewed by the Illinois higher education community itself. In March of 1974, the executive director of the Illinois Board of Higher Education (BHE), Cameron West, announced that such a review would be included in that Board's preparation of Phase IV of the State's Master Plan for higher education.

The BHE is the state agency responsible for longrange planning and coordination in Illinois higher education Preliminary hearings on all facets of postsecondary education have already been held around the State. The BHE staff hopes to continue planning for Phase IV through the spring and summer of 1975 and have a "provisional" plan ready for its Board by the fall of 1975. Any recommendation for change in the basic management structure included in a Final Phase IV Master Plan would require action by the General Assembly.

BHE created in 1961
The notion of comprehensive educational planning and control came in the 1961 inaugural speech of Gov Otto Kerner. Kerner urged the General Assembly to establish a central state planning unit (the BHE) to advise the legislators and the Government. The

4 /Illinois Issues/January 1975

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