\n\tThe original position of vice chancellor for public engagement and institutional relations, held by Steve Schomberg, was created in 2002 by former Chancellor Nancy Cantor. But when Schomberg retired in June 2005, the position went unfilled until Sonka was appointed.<\/p>\n
\n\tSonka said he was not disturbed by the team’s mission.<\/p>\n
\n\t“It’s certainly appropriate given the financial situation in the state that all the activities of the university be looked at,” he said. “It seems consistent with what the university is doing.”<\/p>\n
\n\tBut he added that the office provides essential services.<\/p>\n
\n\t“I think the office should be continued. We will demonstrate considerable value and effectiveness, and we have” in the past, he said.<\/p>\n
\n\t“I’m confident the project team will give careful consideration to the mission. If there was a decision (already) made to eliminate the office, there wouldn’t be a study,” he said.<\/p>\n
\n\tSeveral UI trustees, including David Dorris, Ken Schmidt and Bob Sperling, questioned the appointment at the time, particularly Sonka’s salary. Sperling recommended postponing approval, saying $250,000 “is a lot of money for a board that is struggling to find money for a budget.”<\/p>\n
\n\tIn expanding the office, Herman was particularly interested in strengthening the UI’s presence in Washington, D.C., Chicago and across the state. Sonka was to work on the public engagement pieces of the campus’s strategic plan, including outreach to community colleges and Extension.<\/p>\n
\n\t“There’s no questioning the importance of public engagement,” part of the university’s land-grant mission, Wheeler said. “A lot of the issues that we deal with on campus have a huge public dimension.”<\/p>\n
\n\tThe question is whether a vice chancellor’s office is the most efficient way to promote that mission, or whether it should be centered in the work done by individual departments, he said.<\/p>\n
\n\tThe public engagement office includes an Office of Corporate Relations, which coordinates research ties and gifts from private corporations, and the Office of Sustainability, with a director who coordinates energy-efficiency initiatives on campus.<\/p>\n
\n\tThe letter to the budget review team asks whether there are “less costly ways” to enhance corporate activity on campus, and notes that the campus “currently spends a great deal of money for sustainability activities in the Institute of Natural Resource Sustainability, Facilities and Services, and in the colleges.”<\/p>\n
\n\tRegarding scholarships, UI officials said the campus for years has funded about $1 million in scholarships for female athletes to fulfill Title IX requirements. Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 prohibits discrimination based on sex \u2013 including a failure to provide equal opportunity in athletics \u2013 at schools that receive federal funding.<\/p>\n
\n\t“I think we should be looking at whether it’s possible for the Division of Intercollegiate Athletics to pick that up,” Wheeler said.<\/p>\n
\n\tAnd about $500,000 worth of scholarships are awarded to students after they enroll on campus, to encourage them to participate in certain programs, officials said.<\/p>\n
\n\t“They don’t really have any recruiting value,” Wheeler said. “In some cases they’re not need-based. That may be the right thing to do, but it’s something we’ll be taking a look at in this process.”<\/p>\n
\n\tA universitywide committee reviewing administrative services at the UI, chaired by Craig Bazzani, invited the campus to look at information technology, Wheeler said.<\/p>\n
\n\t“The questions will be: Are there notable redundancies in the way in which we do IT on campus? We have a lot of people involved in IT,” Wheeler said. “Are they organized as efficiently as possible to maximize our resources in that area? If not, are there savings we can gain from consolidating or cutting or doing whatever else it takes to chase the money out?<\/p>\n
\n\t“It really is a case of maximizing resources,” Wheeler said.<\/p>\n
\n\tWheeler said the projects will vary in scope and complexity, but he’s hoping the budget-review teams will move quickly given the UI’s budget stresses.<\/p>\n
\n\t“What we’ll have to do is move a whole lot faster than we ordinarily move in academia,” he said. “We’d very much like to have a significant piece of the project completed before the end of the semester.”<\/p>\n
\n\tWheeler expects 25 or 30 budget-review teams to be appointed in all.<\/p>\n
\n\tThe recommendations for the teams come from the Campus Steering Committee, a budgetary group of mostly deans and administrators that is working closely with several groups \u2013 the Council of Deans, a newly formed faculty Campus Advisory Committee, and faculty-student senate leaders \u2013 to identify units that should be examined for cost savings and possible revenue sources, Wheeler said.<\/p>\n
\n\tNews-Gazette staff writers Paul Wood and Christine des Garennes contributed to this report.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Distributed via Chicago Press Release Services<\/a><\/p>\n URBANA \u2013 The Institute of Aviation and a vice chancellor’s position expanded under former Chancellor Richard Herman are among the first areas targeted in the University of Illinois budget-review process. Teams of faculty and administrators will also take a look at scholarships \u2013 including $1 million in athletic scholarships paid with general campus funds \u2013 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-342948","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342948","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=342948"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342948\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=342948"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=342948"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=342948"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/img><\/a>
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