Leatherneck Nation

State Representative Tim Butler (R-Springfield) warned about public universities overextending themselves:

“We can’t have a bunch of mini flagships all over the state and offering everything under the sun. Concentrate on what you are good at. But I certainly think investment in these universities will retain students in Illinois."

wiu712 wrote: Wed Jun 05, 2019 6:05 pm State Representative Tim Butler (R-Springfield) warned about public universities overextending themselves:

“We can’t have a bunch of mini flagships all over the state and offering everything under the sun. Concentrate on what you are good at. But I certainly think investment in these universities will retain students in Illinois."

I agree. Western has had to make some severe cutbacks on personnel and programs offered over the last couple of years. We can grow, but we need to grow smart rather than be everything to everyone. Offer enough to provide a well-rounded education, but like...let's not go starting up a law school or anything.

wiu712 wrote: Wed Jun 05, 2019 6:05 pm State Representative Tim Butler (R-Springfield) warned about public universities overextending themselves:

“We can’t have a bunch of mini flagships all over the state and offering everything under the sun. Concentrate on what you are good at. But I certainly think investment in these universities will retain students in Illinois."

Yep, Western grew like there was no tomorrow adding a miscellany of programs "just because." Unfortunately, the cuts made so far have been poorly thought out and not where they needed to be.

Western cannot and should not be all things to all people. Western needs to clearly identify what they are good/unique at and support that, with enough supporting pieces not to be a technical or single program focused institution.

The same is true for most all of higher ed. The hay days are long over. You have to play your best hand, not just ante away your stack to stay in the game.

Five states in the country have a higher population than Illinois (California, Texas, Florida, New York, and Pennsylvania). They all have a comprehensive public higher education system. Just saying.

If you are a small island in the public education market, you are dead meat.

sealhall74 wrote: Thu Jun 06, 2019 7:00 am Five states in the country have a higher population than Illinois (California, Texas, Florida, New York, and Pennsylvania). They all have a comprehensive public higher education system. Just saying.

If you are a small island in the public education market, you are dead meat.

At least for California, where I went to college, not all schools offer the same programs. CA has three public university systems - the 10-campus University of California system as the upper tier, the 23-campus California State University system, and at the 2-year level the 114-campus California Community Colleges system. There is one 29-member Board of Regents for the UC system and one 25-member Board of Trustees for the CSU system. The CCC system is governed locally. All campuses are part of the California Master Plan for Higher Education.

Together, the 147-campus public education system in CA is comprehensive, offering everything under the sun, but as individual campuses, there are clear distinctions in offerings. You simply cannot earn every degree at every campus. For example, 1 UC campus offers agriculture degrees (UC-Davis) while two CSU campuses do (Cal Poly Pomona and Cal Poly San Luis Obispo).

In terms of perspective, CA has a population of almost 40-million, some 11-million more than 2nd place Texas. Illinois has a population of just under 13-million

sealhall74 wrote: Thu Jun 06, 2019 7:00 am Five states in the country have a higher population than Illinois (California, Texas, Florida, New York, and Pennsylvania). They all have a comprehensive public higher education system. Just saying.

If you are a small island in the public education market, you are dead meat.

California is consistently listed as one of the top states for public higher-ed in the country. Back in the 1960's, they developed the California Master Plan for Higher Education. Underlying principles of the plan were:
- That some form of higher education ought to be available to all regardless of their economic means, and that academic progress should be limited only by individual proficiency; and
- differentiation of function so that each of the three systems would strive for excellence in different areas, so as to not waste public resources on duplicate efforts.

The plan essentially brought all of the public universities together into a "coherent" system of education, with pretty much all public universities being part of either the U of California System (UCLA, UC-Davis, UC-Santa Barbara, etc.) or the California State System (Cal Poly, Cal State-Fullerton, Cal State-Northridge, etc.). They also have a robust community college system.
Now, CA has a lot more people than IL, but there's obviously some very good ideas in what they're doing.

New York is also generally ranked pretty highly, and they also have two "systems". The SUNY system (State University of New York) including Buffalo, Albany, Stony Brook, etc., and the CUNY system (City University of New York) which includes all the public colleges and community colleges in NYC. NY is different in that they include all the community colleges within the same system as their 4-year public universities.

How that applies to Illinois...well...I'm no expert, but I kinda feel like the Chicago area is a different "beast" than the rest of the state. You could take all the universities in/near the city and have that be one "system"...That would include Chicago State, Governors State, Northeastern, plus the 7 community colleges and 5 satellite sites of the current City Colleges of Chicago system.
Then you have the U of I system: UIUC, UIC, UIS.
Everything else becomes part of the "Illinois State" system...so you have Illinois State "Central" (the main campus in Normal), ISU-North (NIU), ISU-West (WIU), ISU-South (SIU), and ISU-East (EIU).

I kinda feel like the more "urban" sites should be a part of the U of I system: UI-Edwardsville, UI-Quad Cities

Anyway, I don't know if any of this is possible, but I feel like some consolidation needs to be done so we're not all stepping on each other's toes and competing for the same students all the time.

Governor Jim Edgar changed everything in 1995 when he gave each of the state universities their own Board of Trustees.

Prior to that, there were 3 Boards:
University of Illinois.
Board of Regents (NIU, ISU, and SIU).
Board of Governors (everybody else).

If Illinois were to go with Scott's example of the "Illinois State System" (ISU and the 4 compass points), nothing would prevent each university from maintaining its own name, history, and traditions.

For example, the University of North Carolina has 17 campuses. Only 7 of them are called UNC (insert name of city). The rest have their own separate name: North Carolina State, Eastern Carolina, Western Carolina, Appalachian State, Winston-Salem, etc.

wiu712 wrote: Thu Jun 06, 2019 10:15 am Governor Jim Edgar changed everything in 1995 when he gave each of the state universities their own Board of Trustees.

Prior to that, there were 3 Boards:
University of Illinois.
Board of Regents (NIU, ISU, and SIU).
Board of Governors (everybody else).

If Illinois were to go with Scott's example of the "Illinois State System" (ISU and the 4 compass points), nothing would prevent each university from maintaining its own name, history, and traditions.

For example, the University of North Carolina has 17 campuses. Only 7 of them are called UNC (insert name of city). The rest have their own separate name: North Carolina State, Eastern Carolina, Western Carolina, Appalachian State, Winston-Salem, etc.

Sure, I wasn't saying we'd have to change the names, just illustrating that they'd all be under the ISU "umbrella".

wiu712 wrote: Thu Jun 06, 2019 10:15 am Governor Jim Edgar changed everything in 1995 when he gave each of the state universities their own Board of Trustees.

Prior to that, there were 3 Boards:
University of Illinois.
Board of Regents (NIU, ISU, and SIU).
Board of Governors (everybody else).

And with that move, came the proliferation of degree programs at all of the BOG schools!

Low Western student population could cost Macomb $700,000.
From the McDonough County Voice:
https://www.mcdonoughvoice.com/news/201 ... omb-700000


Illinois Lawmakers Set Aside More Than $150-Million for WIU.
From Tri-States Public Radio, WIUM-FM:
https://www.tspr.org/post/illinois-lawm ... illion-wiu