The SIU Board of Trustees will address a semester’s worth of heated issues Thursday when it meets for its final meeting of the spring semester.
On the agenda are the approval of tuition and student fee increases, as well as the implementation of new plagiarism, sexual harassment and conflict-of-interest policies.
“They all just came together at this point,” said SIU President Glenn Poshard. “A lot of things came together because of the tuition and fees; there is just no later meeting to do that at and it had to be taken up. The policy things we have been working on for several years.”
The board is expected to approve the university’s 4.5 percent tuition increase for incoming freshmen and a spike in fees that would force each student to pay an additional $282.84 in fees.
According to the proposal, incoming freshmen will pay $7,288 per year in tuition — the lowest tuition increase since the 2001-02 academic year when rates rose just 3 percent — and $6,241.88 in student fees.
The university’s tuition rate is down from a 9.9 percent proposal that Chancellor Sam Goldman said was more of a statement of needs than it was a realistic proposal.
Nate Brown, the board’s SIUC student trustee, said he expects both tuition and fee figures to pass, but not without scrutiny.
“Many of the board members are lawyers and administrators and business people, and I don’t think they see much difference between the business community and the university,” he said. “When everyone else is having to find ways to cut expenses in difficult times, and they see the university saying we will just raise more money with tuition, they didn’t respond very well to that.”
Included in the student fees is a significant bump to students’ primary and extended health care fees, which are proposed to go up by $60 and $82, respectively. Also included is a newly created ‘green’ fee, which will cost students $20 and will help fund initiatives to make the campus more environmentally friendly.
Overall, 16 fees could be raised.
“Most families and students look at tuition, which is OK,” Brown said. “But if you look at the cost of college, a lot of it is student fees. But still, to have health care for $47 per month, that’s hard to question.”
Poshard said most student fees are necessary devices the university will rely upon in a tough economy. He said fees like the facilities maintenance fee, which is set to increase by $12 to $396, help the university in a time of great need.
“It’s difficult for students to shoulder this, and we certainly lobbied as hard as we could to have more help for the students,” Poshard said. “But we haven’t received those state funds for years. We are looking at fees for things that the state used to pay for.”
The board’s series of policy adjustments, though, could garner the bulk of public attention Thursday.
The board is set to approve new plagiarism, sexual harassment and conflict-of-interest policies.
The plagiarism policy, according to the board’s agenda, would become the benchmark for SIU employees in the Office of the President as well as students, faculty and staff at both campuses.
The policy contains a concrete definition of plagiarism — presenting another existing work, original ideas, or creative expressions as one’s own without proper attribution — and proper procedures necessary to when dealing with plagiarism allegations.
The committee charges with drafting the policy was formed in response to plagiarism accusations against former Chancellor Walter Wendler in December 2006.
In January, the group was also accused of copying its definition of plagiarism from Indiana University in a draft released in December. The definition has since been changed and the draft has been up for revision from several campus constituency groups.
Vice President for Academic Affairs Paul Sarvela said the final policy includes little change from the draft released to constituency groups in March, but does protect against a few rare occurrences.
“We really just modified a little bit of the definitions and added a little clarity,” Sarvela said. “For example, some faculty members noted that very large studies that take several years to complete can have multiple papers written with the same information. We made sure those types of things are not plagiarism.
“We basically recognized the different nuances of writing in different situations and arenas.”
The sexual harassment policy, meanwhile, would replace the current sexual harassment policy, ensuring the university is in compliance with recent U.S. Supreme Court, Federal appellate and State decisions, the board’s agenda said.
The new policy more clearly defines what is sexual harassment and defends against retaliation from people accused of sexual harassment.
Two of the university’s most distinguished professors — John Y. Simon and Cal Meyers — faced sexual harassment allegations in 2008.
The two professors — one of whom filed federal lawsuit against the university and the other of whom died before he could defend the allegations — were victims of a lack of due process, said Marvin Zeman, former Faculty Association president. If the university had reviewed suggested changes to its policy in a timely manner, the situations could have been avoided, he said.
Meyers’ case was one that the Faculty Association used as an example to show a double standard in the way the university handles sexual harassment allegations.
