The Faculty Senate meets today for its one summer session. A controversial communication will be introduced among the remaining presentations from the Spring semester.

“Peggy Stockdale, Council of Illinois University Senates, community colleges’ proposal to break away from the Illinois Board of Higher Education and offer four year degrees,” the senate agenda reads.

Faculty Senate Chairwoman Lynne Curry said she’s not sure if the senate will follow-up on the issue when the Fall term begins.

“Item A is quite interesting,” Curry said. “Four-year institutions find this potentially troubling, particularly since some community colleges are also lobbying to be able to offer four-year degrees.”

“Actually, they are talking about two separate issues and legislation,” said Don Severner, IBHE deputy director for External Relations, of the senate’s agenda item. “House Bill 1434 is the so-called Harper College bill that would allow the college in Palatine to offer two pilot baccalaureate degrees.”

The two pilot degree programs would be for a Public Safety Administration and Homeland Security degree and a Technology Management degree.

“The other issue was a series of bills that would have given more autonomy to community colleges and Illinois Community College Board with respect to capital project approval, academic program approval, and budgets,” Severner said.

House Bill 1434 has drawn a lot attention in getting passed through the Illinois House of Representatives, but it didn’t make it out of committee.

“It has been around for about four years and passed the House last year and nearly got to the Senate floor this year,” Severner said. “So, it has gained a lot of support since it was first proposed.”

Erin Holmes, media relations specialist at Harper College, said the bill will be pursued in the next fiscal year.

“We’re extremely dedicated to the bill because it’s in need for our community, and the bill’s not dead yet,” Holmes said. “The point of our bill was to pursue Bachelor’s degrees that nearby four-year schools don’t offer.”

While Eastern’s senate will only be reading the communication and allowing time for discussion, other universities have kept a close eye on the legislation.

“IBHE and the Illinois Community College Board opposed it, as well as public and private universities. The IBHE opposition was based on the belief that it was premature for the legislature to make such a fundamental change in the structure of higher education while the IBHE is conducting a master planning initiative designed to come up with a Public Agenda for higher education,” Severner said.

Colleges and universities have paid lobbyists in Springfield and House Bill 1434 was the target for many of those lobbyists.

“Other universities have come out to strongly oppose us and have spent some big money to put up roadblocks on it,” Holmes said.

Holmes said Northern Illinois has offered to provide these degree programs on Harper’s campus and have invited negotiations between the administrations.

However, Holmes said the college’s president isn’t sure that an agreement would solve all the potential academic needs of the community.

Rick Kambic can be reached at 581-7942 or at rwkambic@eiu.edu.