IUPUI faculty want larger role

The faculty of IU-Purdue University at Indianapolis has voted overwhelmingly to approve an open letter to the IU board of trustees requesting the next University president treat IUPUI as an equal to IU-Bloomington.\nThe letter also requested greater attention and a larger research role for the Indianapolis campus.\nThe faculty councils of all 18 schools at IUPUI as well as the University library each ratified the letter, with only two professors voting against it, according to a tally compiled by IUPUI mathematics professor Bart Ng.\nNg, the president of the IUPUI Faculty Council, said IUPUI faculty is even more earnest about this issue than the IUB faculty was during the uproar over the failure to pick a campus chancellor in the fall of 2005.\nThe letter calls on the next president of the University and the trustees to recognize IUB and IUPUI as “two strong and complementary research campuses” and says IU cannot achieve greatness unless the campuses are “recognized, valued and supported as equal partners.”\nWhen Bloomington Faculty Council President Ted Miller talked about the letter at the trustees’ business meeting in February, trustee Tom Reilly voiced skepticism about the state’s ability to support a third public research university.\nNg said Indiana’s declining funding for IU means each campus has had to learn to rely less and less on state funding. He also said he rejects the commonly held view that IUB will suffer if the University focuses more resources on IUPUI.\n“This is not Bloomington versus Indianapolis,” he said. “The real question is: Can you not afford to develop a university at the heart of the population center of the state?”\nNg said he and other faculty want IU to bolster the science departments and research faculty at IUPUI. He said having a strong university in Indianapolis to educate and train professionals and produce research will entice businesses to come to Indiana, increasing IU’s importance to the state and its profile nationwide.\nAt their February meeting, the trustees said they will have a thorough discussion about the letter and the IUPUI faculty’s requests at their March 1 and 2 meetings in Indianapolis.\nTrustee President Stephen Ferguson declined to comment on the letter or the new endorsements because the board has not had a chance to meet and discuss the issue, trustee secretary Robin Gress said.