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Thursday, March 28
The Indiana Daily Student

IUPUI faculty: 'What about us?'

Some concerned too much focus placed on IUB

In January, the IU board of trustees passed sweeping reforms to the University's structure, including the creation of a provost position and an increased presence of the IU president in Bloomington. Still, IU-Purdue University Indianapolis faculty members have asked "what about us?"\nIn an emergency meeting Monday, Jan. 30, IUPUI faculty members passed resolutions urging IU President Adam Herbert not to forget about IUPUI in his plan to restructure IU.\nThe resolution raises concerns about Herbert serving as "CEO of Bloomington," which it says could inhibit his ability to serve other campuses. The resolution also says there are concerns about additional responsibilities given to IUPUI Chancellor Charles Bantz to care for other IU campuses. It claims it will dilute his ability to serve IUPUI.\nIUPUI faculty also expressed their concerns at the University Faculty Council meeting Feb. 1. The faculty submitted in writing eight questions for Herbert to answer, including "With the IUPUI chancellor given a lot of grunt work, who is going to lead the IUPUI campus?" and "What is going to happen to research administration -- again centralized (in) Bloomington under the provost? If so, the reorganization is beginning to sound a lot like 'All Bloomington, all the time.'"\nHerbert told the trustees during the business meeting Friday he plans to answer all the questions in a written statement and an online "fireside chat" later. He said he has no timeline for his responses.

Core Campus or Satellite?\nOne of the main concerns about the restructuring is IUPUI's place within the University system. \nWhen the Indianapolis campus was founded 37 years ago, it was made clear that Bloomington and Indianapolis would together form a "core campus" since several schools and projects were split between the two. Even though IUB is considered the "flagship" campus as designated by its mission statement, IUPUI faculty knew they were just as important. They were a part of the core campus.\n"I believe the trustees are looking to change that," said Ted Miller, president of the Bloomington Faculty Council.\nIn November, the trustees passed new mission statements for each of IU's campuses. IUB's statement referred to it as the "flagship campus," but the phrase "core campus" was missing from IUB or IUPUI's statements. Instead, IUPUI is now being referred to as "Indiana's urban research and academic health sciences campus." \nThe IUPUI faculty's resolution is asking IU to reaffirm that Indianapolis is part of the core campus.\nBart Ng, IUPUI faculty council president, said it is important to emphasize that IUB and IUPUI are interdependent.\n"I think flagship is an old outmoded idea," Ng said. "It's a little bit strange to speak of a flagship in this day and age of agile and distributed command structure in the military."\nHerbert and trustee Sue Talbot both repeated IU's "urban research campus" when asked if IUPUI was still part of the core campus.\nAndre DeTienne, UFC member and IUPUI philosophy professor, said he isn't worried about the role of IUPUI being diminished.\n"It has become as much a core campus of IU as IUB," he said. "IUPUI has become as much a part of IU's identity as IUB. IUPUI is no longer the satellite of IU it once briefly was, but it has become an equal partner within the system."

Herbert: President of IU or Bloomington?\nAnother concern of the IUPUI faculty is whether Herbert will give enough attention to campuses outside of Bloomington. In his speech to the trustees in January, Herbert described IU as a confederacy and said Bloomington needs more attention from the \npresident.\n"There is no question at Purdue that the president is the president of the West Lafayette campus," Herbert said.\nSome IUPUI faculty disagreed, saying he needs to serve all of IU.\n"I have a slight disagreement with him here," Ng said. "Purdue is a different system than IU. You look at West Lafayette and there really isn't another campus that can compare to the West Lafayette campus in size and complexity for Purdue. At IU, we have two campuses that are relatively equal in size and in many ways complement each other."\nDeTienne said he understands why IUB faculty want more from Herbert but that focusing just on Bloomington might not be in IU's interest.\n"It might be better in the long run for the president to be perceived more clearly as the president of the entire University without paying too much attention to the legal fact that the seat of IU is in Bloomington," he said.\nHerbert said he sees no conflict of interest as the resolution claims.\n"I'm also president of the entire University and I can handle dual responsibilities," Herbert said. "I'm very confident I can fulfill both roles."

Research in Bloomington or Indianapolis?\nOne of the sharpest disagreements stems from the role of research in the University system. Some faculty expressed concerns that IUPUI might lose its life sciences research to IUB. One change, the separation of the IU School of Medicine from the IUPUI campus, has many worried.\n"The medical school, to some respect, was their leverage in dealing with the administration and the state," said IU Student Association President Alex Shortle. "Losing the entity that is at the core of the University's -- and the state's -- current mission is not easily swallowed. There is some worry on that campus that they will get lost amongst the other 'nonoriginal' campuses."\nIn a letter to the editor written to The Indianapolis Star, IUPUI law professor Eleanor Kinney questioned why research can't be in Indianapolis.\n"(The trustees) focus on making IU-Bloomington a world-class research university while IUPUI is a research university only with respect to its existing strengths," she wrote. "The changes are based on a flawed premise that IU can support only one complete research university and that the state can support only two. IUPUI need not step back so that IU-Bloomington can proceed."\nDeTienne said IUPUI has so many ties with the medical school that you cannot separate the two.\n"Splitting the campus would evidently destroy IUPUI," he said. "Remove research, and IUPUI will lose its soul and become an inferior institution, unattractive to good faculty and unable to foster excellence."

Are the changes all about Bloomington?\nIn the list of questions, the IUPUI faculty claim the restructuring sounds like "All Bloomington, all the time." Ng said this notion is true because Herbert has to address the entire system and not just IUB.\n"The trustees said that the actions they have taken so far are 80 percent about Bloomington because that is where there was a revolt, bluntly put," Ng said. "The actions really have to do with Bloomington so far. And that statement, the complaint that 'all Bloomington, all the time' will be true only if that is all that they do. My view is that statement has limited \nshelf life."\nHerbert vehemently disagreed with that assessment.\n"I'm telling you, that's just not true," Herbert said. "We focused on University-wide issues and not just Bloomington."

Who's taking care of IUPUI?\nWith Bantz being made executive vice president and given the responsibility of taking care of other campuses, IUPUI faculty are concerned their leader will be too busy with "grunt work" to focus on Indianapolis.\n"Grunt work isn't meant to be disrespectful," Ng said. "What they are asking him to do is important, but it is a lot of hard work and that's going to take a lot of his time."\nHerbert said he has no concerns about attention.\n"I can do both, so why can't he?" Herbert said. "I have nothing but faith that Charles Bantz can handle both responsibilities."\nBantz said he has done such a role before at other universities and can do it again.\nIUPUI faculty also questioned the decision to make Interim IUB Provost Michael McRobbie in charge of graduate studies, which is a main priority of IUPUI.\n"That office should not be based in the IUB provost's office, which is supposed to focus only on Bloomington; it should be University-wide," Ng said.\nMcRobbie said he did not wish to comment on the matter, but Herbert said he has no problem with the setup.\n"I don't know why they think that, because Ken Gros Louis did fine with both issues," he said.

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