GSU's damaged reputation

University president promises turnaround

Monday, April 9, 2001

By Lisa Pevtzow
Staff Writer

If a university's reputation is its currency, Governors State University's has become tarnished, according to its students.

"We're concerned about the perception of GSU," said Vicky Wojtas, a psychology student from Oak Forest.

GSU has become one of the most troubled universities in the state system.

At least four of its programs have been denied accreditation or offered without proper approval. Its master's degree social work candidates must rely on legislative intervention to take their licensing exam.

The school has gone through administrative upheaval, including six provosts in the last seven years. It is being sued by its students.

And most recently, the school newspaper's editors, on behalf of some of the social work students, are building a case — department by department — to get the university's certification yanked.

The result? Enrollment is shrinking. An estimated 5,887 students signed up for the school's winter trimester, compared to 5,960 students during the winter 2000 term. Since 1999, the school has lost about 300 students.

The Barron's Guide to Higher Education now rates GSU as "minimally difficult."

GSU officials, acknowledging problems, are responding with a planning process to raise the academic standing of the school and tighten its standards.

In five years time, according to GSU President Stuart Fagan, the school will be the equal of any public university in the state.

"What has happened here has been an aberration," Fagan said. "We have to make sure that aberration won't reoccur."

Fagan wants to repair the school's damaged reputation, and make the school better than it ever has been by turning GSU into something rare in today's higher education community — an open access institution of high quality.

In Fagan's vision, the school will turn out students who are competent in their fields, who are sophisticated in computer technology and who have a global perspective.

There are those who believe he has a long way to go.

GSU in University Park was founded 30 years ago as a template for academic revolution in the United States.

It offered objectives rather than grades and gave credit for life experience. Classes were sometimes conducted with students sitting on the floor. The building was designed with windows that didn't open because its founders counted on computer-driven climate control.

The university now offers grades and transcripts and classrooms with tables and chairs. But GSU remains a commuter school with an open-door policy for those who want to better themselves but lack the grades, the money or the time to attend more highly rated universities in the area.

Academically, the school falls short, said Jeni Porche, daughter of the former director of the ill-fated social work program.

Porche, a graduate English student, is editor of the student newspaper and a plaintiff in the lawsuit against the university.

Porche and two other students have filed a $1.15 million First Amendment lawsuit in federal court against GSU, claiming administrators shut down the newspaper because it was critical of the school administration.

Although there are dedicated, scholarly teachers, many faculty members cut classes short, inflate grades and reduce work loads to accommodate working students or those with small children, Porche said.

Both Porche and Margaret Hosty, who is the newspaper's managing editor, a vice president of the GSU student senate and another lawsuit plaintiff, hope to enter doctoral programs.

"We're getting laughed at," Hosty said.

The required classes at GSU are out of line with what other universities mandate, she said. The bulk of classes, especially at the undergraduate level, are electives rather than core courses. The university offers no classes in French or German.

Porche said she has visited four graduate schools in the Midwest. And each trip started off wonderfully, Porche said, until she told school officials where she was attending.

"And it was downhill from there," she said.

One admissions counselor suggested she start over again at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

"We don't want to be the dumbest students anywhere we go, because we're not prepared here," Porche said.

Their free speech suit claims, among other allegations, that the university in November forced the newspaper's printer to stop publishing the paper.

Fagan said the allegations in the lawsuit are unfounded. But he acknowledged recent events have damaged the school's reputation.

In November, GSU received notice that its masters in social work program failed the accreditation process for the second time.

The school hired a new program director with extensive experience in getting new programs up and running, and committed to hire new faculty at commensurate salaries and tenure. It also developed a shortened timeline with the agreement of the Council on Social Work Education to achieve accreditation in 2003.

But because of professional certification rules that require master's degrees from accredited schools, the students who already took the exam saw their scores canceled. Those who had not yet sat for it were prohibited.

The Illinois Board of Higher Education found that the school enrolled students too early, and without a qualified program director or enough qualified, full-time faculty. Warnings from the accrediting body that GSU was running a serious risk of failure went unheeded.

To solve the problem, the board proposed legislation be passed that would grant provisional licenses to GSU students who passed the licensing test. To gain full-fledged licenses, they would have to attend remedial classes to make up for what they missed.

Friday, the Illinois House of Representatives unanimously passed a bill that gives the GSU students the right to take the licensing exam. They must, however, take make-up classes by the end of 2003. The bill also includes a special provision that students who pursued a specialty in school social work, which GSU had no right to offer, may work in the schools.

State Rep. Kevin McCarthy (D-Orland Park), who introduced the legislation, said initially the State Board of Education, as well as GSU, balked at that last condition.

"Sometimes the system works and, in this case, I would argue with anyone who doesn't think it's a good solution," McCarthy said.

Fagan attributed the accreditation troubles to poor academic leadership and a weak provost, Fagan said. The administration was well-meaning, he said, but not experienced in developing new programs.

During the next five years, each of the 46 degree programs will be evaluated by a professional accrediting body or, if there is none, through external review, he said. Explicit goals will be developed by mid-June, as well as ways to accomplish and measure them.

No program will enroll students until GSU ascertains through an outside review that it has an extremely good chance of winning accreditation, he said.

As a result, GSU's curriculum will be tougher and classes harder, he said.

Faculty will need to be trained, Fagan said, and teachers may be given lighter class loads or research grants.

"If professors are up to date in their fields in terms of research, they'll be better teachers," Fagan said.

The university also has to promote itself more heavily and tell the public about its good programs, of which there are many, he said.

The package will be paid for by tax dollars. To make it more palatable to the Legislature, GSU will concentrate on programs it has rather than adding new ones.

Wojtas and a classmate, Homewood resident Janice Cunningham, sat in the GSU cafeteria, mulling over the university's reputation.

"Are (employers) going to say they've heard about the problems and ask, 'Is your master's up to par?' " said Cunningham, making a face.

The more prestigious the school, the more money a graduate can make, she said.

"If an employer is going to say, 'Oh, ugh, this master's is from Governors State,' maybe I should go someplace else," she said.