Workgroup No. 7, focusing on academic programs, questioned how to format its final draft of recommendations and whether or not it should prioritize its recommendations at its meeting Tuesday.

Workgroup Chair Cindy Rich said she sent an email to general counsel Rob Miller and vitalization Task Force Chair Ryan Hendrickson asking the workgroup have in writing the changes Eastern President David Glassman made last Wednesday at an All Task Force meeting so the workgroup has the exact wording the president wants them to use.

Rich also requested the final recommendation format be sent to them in writing.

“The list is not by college like we did last time,” Rich said.

Instead, the final report it sends would just be the list of four categories it placed the recommendations into and the majority and minority recommendations.

“My guess is that they are working on a template (for the final recommendations) as we speak,” Rich said.

Originally, the workgroup was charged with formatting its recommendations based on four different categories: recommendations for programs to continue with increased resources, recommendations for further efficiencies or changes to enhance marketability and/or increase student enrollment, recommendations for programs or services to develop a plan to improve viability or efficiency, and recommendations for program deletion or outsourcing.

However, at the All Task Force meeting last Wednesday, Glassman changed the language of the recommendation categories for the workgroup and what it needed to base them on.

Scott Stevens, a business professor, said Glassman changed them so the workgroups could recommend for a program or service to continue with increased resources, say which programs are stable and do not need any recommended action, recommend programs or services develop a plan to enhance operational efficiency, or make recommendations for a program or service to be deleted or outsourced.

Rich said the fourth category of recommendations was altered by the workgroup to say “recommendation for program service or outsourcing and consolidation.”

Medical insurance manager Angie Campbell asked whether the workgroup should prioritize its recommendations, as Glassman announced at his meeting last Wednesday.

Rich asked if she meant the workgroup should prioritize within the four categories of recommendations.

“I don’t think he went into that detail. I thought he just said what you want your list of priorities to be,” Campbell said. “He didn’t specify; he just wanted the list of priorities.”

Music professor Danelle Larson said the group should get clarifications regarding whether or not it should prioritize its recommendations.

Larson said it did not have to do that for the preliminary recommendations because its group is different.

Accountant Joyce Schumacher said Workgroup No.7 is different because it is not mutually exclusive.

But Rich said this time, Glassman specifically said every workgroup is required to prioritize.

Stevens said Glassman wants a stand-alone page of recommendations with the majority and minority ratings prioritized.

He said it would make sense if only the recommendations under the fourth category are prioritized, but other group members argued the recommendations under category one should be prioritized as well.

Rich said the recommendations under the fourth category consist of programs with very low enrollments.

“That would be a good opportunity for the departments with the very low enrollments (to) talk with the president about it,” Rich said.

Rich said the new terminology for the categories essentially means the same thing; there’s just a little more positive spin on it because of the negative reaction from the original ones.

“The perception is out there that these are things that everybody knows already,” Rich said. “Nothing that we have in our report is breaking news… somebody just put it on paper.”

Rich said the workgroup is kind of on hold with the final recommendation template until the members hear from Hendrickson or Miller.

As for formatting its recommendations for the last time, Rich sent out a possible document to use, essentially starting from scratch and listing the ratings the members had for the different academic programs.

However, workgroup members said it would be complicated to use because of all the changes that needed to be made.

Instead, members agreed it would be easier to use what they used in the first round of recommendations and just readjust the ratings or recommendations where they need to.

The Workgroup will bring its rating sheets and discuss them and formatting final recommendations at its next meeting 4 p.m. Thursday in the Sullivan Room of the Martin Luther King Jr. University Union.

The workgroup will also send two members to meet with chairs of departments it put in the fourth category of recommendations, for program deletion, outsourcing or consolidation.

These meetings will take place over the next couple of days.

Rich instructed members that if someone should show up with multiple people to try to change the format of the meeting, then they have to explain why they cannot do that because the meeting was already decided on.

These meetings are not only good for the workgroup, Rich said, but they are also good for the departments to help them organize what they are going to say to the president when they meet with him to discuss the recommendations.

Analicia Haynes can be reached at 581-2812 or achaynes@eiu.edu.