to bring together representatives from public colleges and universities to look at this issue and to look at the various ways that have already been tried by some institutions to measure campus climate and eventually to develop an instrument that all institutions could use to survey their faculty.
“Finally, there is strengthening accountability. We find that the accountability mechanisms in place are fairly weak. The information that is provided doesn’t really give you a good sense of the institutions that are making progress. We’ve also found that in terms of faculty with disabilities, sometimes the accountability for these faculty is misplaced, that the responsibility is inappropriately placed at the department level, when it is really at the campus level where individual faculty members can go and get reasonable accommodations, something they are entitled to by law.
“Before I conclude, I want to thank Diane Nyhammer who was very active and involved in this report from the beginning. She was involved in the discussions that we had, in the writing and in the proofing. That ends my report, and I would be pleased to take questions.”
Mrs. Sloan asked, “You said that we have 3,000 minority master’s degree graduates each year and that 36 percent of them are being hired in-state. Does that mean that others are being hired out-of-state?” Dr. Day responded, “These are two different things. One is the number of minority graduates that we have in Illinois higher education from all master’s degree programs. This amounts to about 3,000 African-American and Latino graduates. Then, we have the state scholarship ICEOP program that serves some master’s degree minority students. I would guess about 50 students each year. We have a given number of those ICEOP master’s degree students that graduate every year. About 31 percent of those graduates then move on to jobs in-state where they take academic positions. So when you look at the number of minority ICEOP graduates going to academic positions and then compare that to the number of minority master’s degree graduates in the state, you’re down to about one- or two-tenths of one percent.” Mrs. Sloan noted that there is an excellent video highlighting the ICEOP program. She said it would be a good recruiting tool.
Mr. Blakemore said: “First, I want to commend our Executive Director who provided a lot of leadership, and Doug, with whom I’ve had the privilege of working on several committees. This is obviously a follow-up to what we did on access and diversity when we focused on students. We did not feel in that report that we could provide the time and analysis necessary to combine both students and faculty. I think we should not, however, make the mistake of having the same type of analysis – particularly as it relates to the Supreme Court – when we look at the faculty diversity issue versus the student access and admissions issues. That is of particular concern to me, because I hope that institutions would have a great deal more discretion in terms of hiring faculty compared to probably less discretion when it comes to the admission of students.
“There are a couple suggestions that I would make that are in three areas. One, in terms of the Supreme Court, although I think it is prudent for the Board to wait to see what the Supreme Court says, I don’t believe that we need to wait to make recommendations. I believe that our recommendations should be based on what we feel is best for higher education. Once we have a decision we need to very carefully analyze what implications that decision may or may not have on our recommendations. And, I believe we should be prepared to assess what other actions we can take, whether it’s legislative, policy, practice, or whatever, to assure that our recommendations within light of whatever the Supreme Court might say, will get us to the goal that we want to reach. So I would not wait on a Supreme Court that may or may not even be relevant to these specific issues. I think we need to be prepared to say how we can best reach our
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