Illinois Board of Higher Education

In the fall of 1961, the Illinois Senate voted to create the Illinois Board of Higher Education to help in the administration of Illinois' institutions of higher learning. The Board had three major tasks or powers: (1) prepare a master plan for the "development, expansion, integration, coordination, and efficient utilization of the facilities, curricula, and standards of higher education for all the public universities and for the public junior colleges of the state"; (2) approve or disapprove the establishment of any new college, school, institute, department or research program; (3) analyze the universities' budgets and submit recommendations on them to the budget agencies of the governor and General Assembly. With this authority, the IBHE became increasingly powerful in influencing the development of state supported colleges and universities. The University of Illinois and Southern Illinois University enjoyed an advantage with the IBHE because the chairmen of their governing boards served on the Board. Northern, Illinois State, Western, Eastern, Northeastern Illinois State, and Chicago State had among them only one representative, the chairman of the Board of Governors of State Colleges and Universities. The Faculty Advisory Committee of the IBHE, aware of the inequity of the situation, recommended establishing a single governing body for all public universities and dissolving lower level boards. On May 6, 1964, Northern's University Council voted that the IBHE support one of two reforms: either (1) a state-wide governing board over all public institutions, or (2) a separate institutional governing board for Northern, in addition to the existing boards, so that each of the three largest public universities would have its own governing board. Although the Senate did pass a bill providing a separate governing board for Northern, the House failed to approve the measure. Instead, the IBHE wrote a new Master Plan (Phase II) establishing a Board of Regents to govern Northern, Illinois State, and later, Sangamon State University, beginning on July 1, 1967. The new system involved state wide coordination of budgeting, programming, and master planning by the IBHE level boards over senior institutions. Another system level board coordinated activities of the community colleges. This arrangement reduced somewhat the advantage enjoyed by the University of Illinois and Southern Illinois University. The Board of Regents was dissolved at the end of 1995. On January 1, 1996 Northern Illinois University established its own Board of Trustees to govern its activities.

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