Key mandates of leadership are, in practice, almost impossible to apply without sacrifice and self-doubt, and crises that require leadership and invite public comment rarely arrive with clarity.
As the student body’s Chief of Staff, I spent most of the summer working with the President and Executive Vice President of SGA on the matter of changes at the University. We learned about the approval of the layoff plan and academic restructuring about 2 weeks before they became public.
That month was the most challenging month I’ve experienced in my role yet. Constant meetings, tension between friends and coworkers, disagreements, daily communication issues. We worked tirelessly to lobby administration to get answers for students while protecting dangerous information until we received context and confirmation.
We navigated biased agendas and interests to arrive at facts, collected from meetings with Academic Affairs, Student Affairs, the Provost, and other leaders, countless nights of poring over Faculty Senate documents, university financial statements, and long meetings discussing information with sources.
The University has been operating significantly over capacity, with a much larger faculty than we needed. The University announced with little notice its plan to cut 30% of faculty and restructure the departments in order to save our school. We watched in real time as the last-minute notice sent professors into a frenzy, filing motions of no confidence and doing whatever they could to halt the process and save their positions, claiming that shared governance entitled them to a greater say in this decision despite board approval. Regardless of whether or not they were correct in their actions, soon born was a regulatory crisis that threatened our accreditation.
The sensationalist story soon hit local news, and soon after was discovered by students, long before we were formally informed of the changes and a mere 2 weeks before our return to classes.
This created an understandable panic. As the most important stakeholders in higher education, students have a moral right to know what they’re stepping back into before it is thrown at them by outside media.
Our school is made of 40% international enrollment. Regardless of your politics, the reality is that Illinois Tech’s ability to serve this key demographic has been threatened by the unprecedented policies of the Trump administration.
While our University can and will continue on from this crisis, it could not do so while operating over capacity, and leadership had no choice but to face this reality. Our leadership should not be punished for making the difficult but responsible decision to save our future, even when it was unpopular with the faculty. In fact, to do so was their mandate as leaders.
Given the juxtaposition of this restructuring’s timing with our accreditation, it is important to note that it should be considered completely independently from our academic rigor and institutional fitness to provide valuable degrees. To call further into regulatory question our world-class research institution’s ability to educate us was a risky act driven by the understandable desperation of an impacted section of faculty, and not reflective at all of the academic quality and love for teaching, learning, and science displayed every day at our University.
The Board and leadership’s ability to bounce back from catastrophic extrinsic headwinds with an innovative interdisciplinary educational structure designed with a rapidly moving workforce future in mind should be seen as a proud milestone in Illinois Tech’s history. To do so in a way that excites Board leaders who are experts in real working industries, without impacting tuition costs or financial aid, the existing rigor of our courses, or the wisdom provided by the very best and brightest of our faculty selected to remain, I believe, is a testament to our relevance in 21st-century education.
However, institutional stewardship is a game that must be played by all stakeholders. As student leaders, it is our mandate to recognize what is and is not fair for the student body. This level of communication, for faculty and students alike, was unacceptable and created a completely avoidable crisis.
Communication leadership throughout this crisis will stick out as a blemish in the record of our current senior leadership. The unprecedented delay in communication with faculty threatens our professional reputation with the world’s best and brightest educators, and with accreditors for compliance in shared governance. The delay in communication to students who took big risks and changed their lives by attending Illinois Tech is disrespectful of the sacrifices we make in search of a better future for ourselves and our families.
To be honest, I believe I share with most of you the opinion that public acknowledgement and corrective action are needed in University communications leadership for our President and Provosts’ administration to be a success. At SGA, we’re excited to be actively taking steps to address this. During a summer meeting, Provost Hudson committed to our ask, which was to attend an SGA public forum and answer student questions directly, which we applaud and see as a step in the right direction to restoring trust.
It is times like these, especially during accreditation, that we are called to answer who we are as an institution. This includes the ability of the students to speak up and advocate for justice, and the administration’s willingness to listen to our concerns and adjust policies to be equitable to all stakeholders. Ensuring this is the case is SGA’s priority, and we do not hesitate to hold all relevant parties accountable to those standards.
I encourage all of you to stay calm. Despite major uncommunicated changes, the comparable value of an Illinois Tech degree and opportunities for multidisciplinary learning here are still bright. You are what makes this school great. Your passion, love for learning, and grit are what will build the future of this institution.
I call on each of you to remember this as we govern ourselves, work with administrators to seek out the root causes of communication failures, hold individuals accountable where morality demands it, and continue to be the backbone that keeps this institution an innovative pinnacle of higher education in a rapidly changing society.