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Higher education's system of systems: reform rebuttal


We began this discussion of the governance system for Illinois higher education with a proposal by Albert Somit. He proposed rearranging the 12 public universities under two systems or boards, rather than the present four (see "Illinois system of systems: time for a change in higher education," October 1987). Responding to the Somit proposal and basically defending the present system was James M. Furman (see "Higher education's system of systems: It works," November 1987). In January we published responses to those articles from top administrators of the Illinois higher education system.

To wind up the discussion we present final comments from the two original authors — Professor Somit, formerly president of Southern Illinois University at Carbondale, and James M. Furman, executive vice president of the John D. and Catherine T. Mac Arthur Foundation and formerly director of the Illinois Board of Higher Education.

We also include comments from James W. Worthy, who could be considered at least an "uncle" of the present system of systems, and a more technical suggestion for analyzing any formation of the present 12 institutions.


Eleven chancellors, presidents and executive directors have commented on my proposal to reform Illinois' "system of systems" and on James M. Furman's subsequent thoughtful critique of that proposal. Courtesy, as well as a welcome opportunity to restate and expand my case, calls for a response. I will first address Jim Furman's defense of the current arrangement and, second, the points made by the re-spondees which go beyond or add to his arguments.

Furman's basic position is that the system of systems really works quite well. He stresses the "extraordinary accomplishments" of Illinois' higher education over the past 25 years, arguing that ". . .it would have been hard to achieve this track record with a fatally flawed structure." This formulation, I respectfully submit, simultaneously blurs the issue and pinpoints the basic difference in our respective outlooks. There is a vast leap in logic between the proposition that the system is not fatally flawed and the conclusion that it works well, let alone excellently.

I disagree, too, with his claim that Illinois has developed "a complex of state universities which. . . are without peer in providing graduate and professional education. . . ." That is precisely what we have failed to do — one great university does not a complex make. When we look at public higher education, Illinois lags behind California, New York and Texas, possibly even Michigan, in this respect.

It also lags behind them in another very important respect. Public higher education in Illinois faces extremely serious funding problems. In fact, Illinois now ranks near the bottom of the fourth quartile on almost every comparative measure of state expenditure for public higher education, a point I should have made in my initial article. At least some responsibility for this situation must be attributed to the political weakness of the overall structure and, conceivably, of the agency charged with speaking for higher education in Springfield, the Illinois Board of Higher Education (IBHE).

Furman says, "if it ain't/isn't broke, don't fix it." Clearly we have divergent conceptions of what constitutes "broke." Whatever the system of systems might have accomplished in the past, today it urgently needs fixing.

Let me now turn to some of the other points raised by the 11 respondees.

President Earl Lazerson of Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville urges that we ". . .set aside speculative organizational visions. . . ." Guilty as charged. It is written, I think, that "where there is no vision, the people perish."

Board of Regents Chancellor Roderick Groves expresses the view that ". . .two systems rather than four would promote more centralization." Just why this should be the case is not made clear. In any event, I doubt that there could be much more centralization than that already being forced upon the 12 campuses by the existing four systems.

Illinois State University President Lloyd Watkins fears that the proposed two-system structure would exacerbate the funding inequities already suffered by the institutions likely to constitute the "second system." This is a very legitimate concern. But the latest IBHE salary study shows that the California State University System schools are funded at a level both immeasurably better than their counterpart Illinois institutions and very close to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. A system sweeping across the state could have far more political influence than is presently possible.

Southern Illinois University Chancellor Lawrence Pettit takes only six paragraphs to document his contention that "Furman said all that needs be said about Somit's scheme." He defends – I believe that is his intent — the system of systems by reminding us that "we live in an imperfect world" and that "none of us gets his way all the time. . . ."

Richard Wagner, executive director of the IBHE, argues that there are "four policy issues that are significantly more important than structural issues." I think that a more rational and


February 1988 | Illinois Issues | 14


politically effective structure would make it much easier to deal with these issues. As University of Illinois President Stanley Ikenberry notes, "Governance and administration are not irrelevant to. . . . questions of substance. . . ."

David Pierce, executive director of the Illinois Community College Board, is right when he objects that I did not address the problem of coordination with the community colleges. That is a problem everywhere. I would hope that it would be less so with two, rather than four, systems.

Chancellor Donald Langenberg of the University of Illinois at Chicago apparently questions my inclusion of Northern Illinios University, some 100 miles' distance from his own campus, in the proposed "University of Illinois System." That issue is discussed by Northern's president, John La Tourette, in his letter.

President Ikenberry, challenging my comments about unequal funding, says that "most Illinois public universities spend about the same amount of money per credit hour." Hardly. According to the latest IBHE studies, per credit hour expenditures range, by institution, from a low of $119 to a high of $220; average annual faculty salaries vary almost as widely. Still, that is a relatively minor matter. More important is President Ikenberry's conviction that the system of systems "is working reasonably well." For the University of Illinois it may — but not for Northern, or Southern, or most of the other state universities.

The letter from Board of Governors Chancellor Thomas Layzell is written, we are told, "on behalf of myself and the five presidents in the Board of Governors System." With all respect to Chancellor Layzell, I refer the reader to my comment above on "system centralization."

In contrast to the solid, sometimes fervent, opposition of all the system heads, President La Tourette (NIU) and Durward Long (Sangamon State University) express cautious sympathy, perhaps even support, for my proposal. President Long seems to speak for both in including that ". . . the state may benefit from a careful examination of the current system and proposed modifications. . . to determine whether the structure meets current needs." I ask for no more.

One final word: to be sure, the two-system structure I have proposed is not without problems. But is that the real issue? The key question is whether these or other alternative models, with all their attendant problems, might not be better on balance for Illinois than the present structure. Yes, the system of systems "work"צ but not very well. And given Illinois' needs – present and future – that simply isn't good enought.

Albert Somit


I suspect that by this point the readers of Illinois Issues have been told more about the Illinois system of higher education than they care to know. President Somit, your other commentators, and I agree that Illinois' colleges and universities are facing critically important challenges and problems that will require all the energy, resources and talent we can muster. Unlike President Somit, however, I still see no link between the structure of higher education and the problems we face, and no real possibility that tinkering with the structure will contribute to the solution of important problems.

James M. Furman


Recent numbers of Illinois Issues have carried articles about the governing structure of public higher education in Illinois, with special reference, pro and con, to the so-called "system of systems." In view of the importance of the subject, a brief account of the system's origins may be useful.

In 1965 I chaired the Committee on Governing Structure ("Committee N") appointed by the State Board of Higher Education to examine the means by which existing and new institutions "might be appropriately governed." Of special concern to the higher board was the rapid growth in post-secondary enrollments and the likelihood that new universities, or branches of existing institutions, would soon be needed. There was general agreement that the existing governing structure was unequal to the tasks that lay ahead.

That structure consisted of the Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois, the Board of Trustees of Southern Illinois University, the Board of Governors of State Colleges and Universities, and the Junior College Board, all operating under the overall guidance and coordination of the State Board of Higher Education. To quote the report of Commmittee N: "What the committee sees is a system of four 'systems.' Each of these systems is large, complex, multi-campused, multiple-programed, and geographically dispersed . . . ."

Early in its deliberations, the committee concluded that "institutional function is a more appropriate means by which institutions could be assigned to a given board of governance" than geography or other possible criteria. On this principle, the committee found no difficulties in the composition of three of the four systems: the University of Illinois, Southern Illinois University and the junior colleges. A serious problem, however, lay in the composition of the state college and university system. By the early 1960s, Northern Illinois University and Illinois State University had developed well beyond their sister institutions under the Board of Governors and were offering academic programs to the doctoral level in a variety of fields; clearly their governance requirements differed from those of other schools in the Board of Governors system. To meet this need, Committee N proposed creation of the "Regency System" to which governance responsibilities for Northern and Illinois State could be assigned. Rather than four systems there would now be five.

This recommended structure was approved by the higher board, the governor and the legislature, and in its essentials remains in place today. Committee N did not invent the "system of systems." That already existed. Committee N merely reshaped it and gave it a name.

The pattern of governance assignments adopted over 20 years ago was a realistic response to the characteristics and needs of public higher education at that time. A second Committee N, which I also chaired, reexamined the structure in 1971 and concluded that insofar as assignments to governing boards were concerned no change was warranted.


February 1988 | Illinois Issues | 15


ii880218-1.jpg

But in the 16 years that have passed since this last systematic reexamination, changes of great magnitude have occurred. A structure that was appropriate nearly a generation ago may now need modification and perhaps extensive revision, just as in 1965 when the then existing structure needed to be reshaped to reflect the changes that had occurred since the end of World War II. The time may well have come for a completely fresh reexamination of the governance situation.

Those who undertake such a reexamination will be wise to recognize in advance that they will be dealing with an extremely complex subject involving major vested interests, keen institutional rivalries, and controversial issues of high emotional content. Their task will not be easy. I speak from experience.

James C. Worthy


Assuming the Illinois' "system of systems" should be changed, how should it be changed? The answer is less obvious than it might seem. Albert Somit, disagreeing with the overall structure and institutional mix of the system of systems, has suggested that the matter be subjected to an empirical approach. "This approach requires a look at the individual schools in terms of the key characteristics normally used to classify universities – i.e., enrollment, budget, advanced graduate and professional programs, and external funding." Based on such data, he brands the institutional mix of the current system of systems structurally irrational and proposes instead of two systems based on the California model.

The question of the appropriate number os systems and the institutional mix of each system is an issue which can be sub-jected to an empirical analysis. To assure that the wish is not the father of the choice, and in order to communicate in a manner which is not discounted from the outset, we subjected dan presented in Somit's table 3 to an empirical analysis. Whilesone may claim that Somit's measures are "crude," they do represent the important indices that differentiate institutions. Cluster analysis is an appropriate statistical tool to examine suchi question, but not everyone is familiar with this tool whose god is to categorize cases into homogeneous groups or clusters a the basis of their "nearness." The most common index of nearness is the squared Euclidean distance, which is the sum of the squared differences over all of the variables expressed in standardized form. Cases are combined into clusters based on their "average linkage" which defines the distance between two clusters as the average of the distances between all possible pain of cases in each cluster. ("The average linkage differs from other linkage methods in that it uses information about all pairs of distances, not just the nearest or the furthest." For this reason it is usually preferred to other linkage methods. See Marija J. Norusis, Advanced Statistics Guide — SPSSX, p. 180.)

The figure presents a pictorial summary, called a vertical icicle plot, of a cluster analysis of Somit's data. The columns in the figure correspond to the 12 public universities. The rows correspond to the number of clusters imposed on the data. The figure is read from bottom to top. At the first reported step (row 11), the two "nearest" institutions, Sangamon State University and Governors State University, are combined into a single cluster. At each subsequent step, an additional cluster is formed by joining either a single university to an extant multi-university cluster, two separate universities into a single cluster or two multi-university clusters.

The four-cluster solution shown in the figure lends support to Somit's claim that the institutional mix of Illinois' present "system of systems" is structurally irrational. Row 4 of the figure shows these clusters:

  • Cluster I consists of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign;
  • Cluster II has Sangamon State University, Governors State University, Northeastern Illinois University, Chicago State University, Western Illinois University, Eastern Illinois University and Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville;
  • Cluster III contains Northern Illinois University, Illinois State University and Southern Illinois University-Carbondale;
  • Cluster IV consists of the University of Illinois-Chicago. Thus the institutional mix of this counterfactual four-cluster solution differs substantially from the actual configuration of institutions in the system of systems.

February 1988 | Illinois Issues | 18




The manner in which the
clusters are formed suggests
that Illinois institutions of
higher learning cannot be
combined into two
structually rational groups



The figure also suggests that Somit's proposed two-cluster solution is itself not immune to the charge of structural irrationality. The manner in which the clusters are formed suggests that Illinois institutions of higher learning cannot be combined into two structurally rational groups. The degree of similarity between units grouped in each new cluster is summarized in the agglomeration coefficients. The agglomeration coefficient shows the value of the average distance between the points of the clusters being formed. ("These coefficients can be used for guidance in deciding how many clusters are needed 10 represent the data. One usually wishes to stop agglomeration as soon as the increase between two adjacent steps becomes large." See Marija J. Norusis, Advanced Statistics Guide – SPSSX, p. 174.)

Small coefficients indicate that fairly homogeneous clusters are being merged. Large coeffcients indicate that clusters containing quite dissimilar members are being combined. The agglomeration coefficients show a fairly large increase in the value ot the distance measure from a four-cluster to a three-cluster solution; the increase is even more substantial for a two-cluster solution.

Note that the two-cluster solution shown in row 2 sheds little light on the issue of institutional mix in the system of systems. Row 2 tells us only what we already know. The tale is simple.

F. Scott Fitzgerald: You know, Ernest, the rich are different from us.

Ernest Hemingway: Yes, I know. They have more money than we do.

Viewed from the Illinois State University campus, the $3,580 difference per full-time equivalent student that accrues to the University of Illinois is too large to be explained by appeals to graduate mission or "flagship" status.

The figure also suggests that House Bill 782, which proposes the creation of a fifth system to govern Northern Illinois University, is also subject to the charge of structural irrationality. Based on Somit's key characteristics, row 8 is the last row in which Northern Illinois University stands alone, a solution that corresponds to eight clusters imposed on the data. To paraphrase Somit, does Illinois need six separate boards, plus the legislature and the executive branch, involved in public higher education?

Jack Chizmar, Associate Vice President for Business and Finance,
Illinois State University
and
Bill Gorrell, Director of Institutional Research,
Illinois State University


February 1988 | Illinois Issues | 17



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