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By BEVERLEY SCOBELL

Taming the higher education beast

Tortoise-like changes may serve to improve
quality and productivity on all campuses
without any redo of governing boards

There is a tale told
In the land of higher ed
About a knight so bold
To take on a task so dread
As to try to tame the beast
That ate the most and gave the least.

Yet it was a decent being
Still doing good deeds for its master.
But it kept asking the king,
"More food, more food, faster, faster."
The king in his wisdom said,
"It's eating too much! Cut off its head!"

The knight thought that a bit radical
He wanted to keep the beast, just under control.
The knight turned to his trusted oracle,
Who told him a story with a comforting moral
"Remember Aesop's hare and tortoise. My Grace.
Swift catches the eye, but slow and steady wins the race."

Slow and steady are certainly the modus operandi in implementing changes in higher education, but changes are being made. Few know about the changes going on in the state's colleges and universities, public and private, and even fewer care about them. But what is happening in the higher echelons of higher ed administration will have a subtle but lasting effect on the education bang for the taxpayer buck.

Two issues, seemingly unrelated but undeniably linked, are entangled in higher education's version of Aesop's tale. One stems from a long-standing desire on the part of some in state government to reorganize the governance of higher education. Spurred on by a report by the Governor's Task Force on Higher Education (see Illinois Issues, February 1993, page 8), those forces, led by Lt. Gov. Bob Kustra, ran fast, made a lot of noise in committee hearings early this spring, then kind of faded away. Nothing was done about eliminating the Board of Governors and the Board of Regents and reorganizing the "system of systems." Nothing was done about the recommendation of the task force to place Sangamon State University under either the University of Illinois or Southern Illinois University. Nor were there any serious moves made to change the University of Illinois board of trustees from the only elected education board to an appointed one.

What is ironic is that this process of reevaluation throughout higher education may show that improvement is possible without severe structural changes. Launched in 1991 by a simple directive, not an ultimatum, from Illinois Board of Higher Education (IBHE) Chairman Art Quern (see Illinois Issues, May 1992, page 11), the slow and steady, painfully tedious process of every institution scrutinizing its entire educational and operational administration is proving to be cathartic. Called Priorities, Quality and Productivity, or PQP in bureaucratic shorthand, the self-cleansing actions initiated by Quern are expected to give students a better education and taxpayers more efficient use of dwindling tax dollars.

A vocal supporter of PQP, perhaps for obvious reasons, is Thomas D. Layzell, chancellor of the Board of Governors. Nevertheless, with little variation on the theme, the heads of the other governing bodies, or their spokespersons, offer the same opinion of PQP. "I think it is the right initiative at the right time, the right questions to be asking, the right issues to be studied," says Layzell. He admits that what positive effects result from this exercise will be spread out over time. "But early on," says Layzell, "just the public discussion of issues of productivity, priorities and quality, and things like expenditure trends, graduation rates, academic calendars, the development of productivity guidelines, all of that is positive because it focuses attention both in the higher education community and outside on what are important public policy issues we all ought to be concerned about."

Layzell argues that the issues being studied are important to the overall health of our education system, which is of key importance to both our social and cultural life as

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August & September 1993/Illinois Issues/43


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well as our economic life. Layzell wants to see the Quern initiative carried through because he doesn't want higher ed to lapse back into "business as usual," where issues were not aired in a public forum. "The community at large does not seem to care too much about what's going on," says Layzell, "until some crisis happens or their sons and daughters can't get admitted or they can't get out of school in a reasonable length of time, or some issue [surfaces] that makes higher ed a public issue."

Though higher ed administrators are quick to remind that governance and PQP are entirely different issues, they are connected. With the admitted distrust of politicians within the academic community, higher ed prefers to get its own house in order, at its own pace, so that state government remains on the stoop and does no more than continue to slide the money under the door. And generally legislators seem content with that arrangement, as the inaction this past session would indicate, even with Gov. Jim Edgar's prodding for change. (Edgar has not disguised his feeling that his alma mater, Eastern Illinois University, has suffered within the constraints of the Board of Governors system.)

Jim Nowlan, president of the Taxpayers' Federation of Illinois, says that other than rare instances of strong personal interest as shown by Edgar, "governors and lawmakers have generally found the internal politics of higher education of little interest or political importance." However, if enough legislators hear questions or disgruntlement about the education, or lack of it, constituents' sons and daughters are receiving at ever-increasing tuition prices, they will listen to arguments for reorganization and add fuel to the fire in the hare's belly.

Though it will ultimately result in a better education for students in Illinois' colleges and universities, says Southern Illinois University Chancellor James M. Brown, it will not save any money. That's not its purpose, he says. "PQP is an effort to determine the priorities of your institution and to allocate resources to those priorities instead of other things you don't want to spend money on. That doesn't reduce costs anywhere. It directs the resources. You spend the money to define the job you want to do and try to do it better."

Colleges and universities began their self-examination in the fall of 1991. In a report submitted to the IBHE in October 1992, each institution responded to questions in a guideline formulated by the IBHE to determine each institution's strengths and weaknesses. This October all institutions of higher learning will report actions taken as a result of the findings of the first year's study. The IBHE has recommended that public universities free up 6 to 8 percent of their appropriations and redirect it, over the next three years, to higher priorities. The board suggested places to find the money to reinvest: 8-10 percent from administration and other support functions; 6-9 percent from research and public service; 100 percent of state appropriated funds for intercollegiate athletics; and 2-4 percent from instruction. The board also recommended that universities reduce, consolidate or eliminate 190 academic programs and units.

Community colleges, coordinated by the Illinois Community College Board, will also submit a report to the IBHE in October with the results of their surveys. Carey Israel, executive director of the community college board, says several positive things have already happened because of the PQP process. Two managerial changes will improve productivity, Carey says. One is a computer linkup with 49 colleges that will allow his staff to access data directly to prepare reports for the IBHE, saving the redundancy of two reports. The community college board also looked at all the reports required of the individual colleges and found that many were outdated and not serving any purpose. "Now we all know in a bureaucracy," says Carey, "that without something like PQP to encourage us to look at these things, those reports would have been generated forever."

Carey also says that 70 programs in 30 colleges have been eliminated due to PQP. In fact, one entire community college, Chicago City-wide College, was eliminated when it was judged that its programs could be integrated into other nearby community colleges. Programs have been consolidated throughout the one-million student, 49-college system, says Carey, and unproductive off-campus sites have been closed. Four colleges have eliminated their athletic programs. "Without something like PQP no one is going to close down an athletic program," says Carey.

Private colleges and universities are also participating in the PQP initiative and will submit their report in October. Don Fouts, president of the Federation of Illinois Independent Colleges and Universities, says his staff is preparing the report for its 60 members. His organization has asked its member schools to go a step further, beyond the guidelines set by the IBHE, and identify four major functions on their campuses that are particularly efficient and productive. "This narrative will give [the schools] an opportunity to talk about their distinctive characteristics," says Fouts. He says a database of information has grown from the PQP investigations. "We see the database as an inventory of good ideas, a tool that will facilitate the sharing of information among the institutions," says Fouts.

In November the Board of Higher Education will consider an assessment of the results of PQP during 1992-93 and present a plan for continuing efforts in 1993-94. The board will address spending patterns for administration and support services because a July 1993 report found that 46 percent of the total $1.3 billion from state funds was spent on those functions. A recommedation to eliminate state-appropriated support for intercollegiate athletics will also be considered by the board. In addition, the board will make recommendations for research and public service activities and off-campus coursework, areas that earlier reports concluded could be realigned to be more consistent with the missions of the institutions as well as be more productive. 

44/August & September 1993/Illinois Issues


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