URBANA – The faculty-student senate has approved a resolution criticizing efforts to centralize decision-making at the University of Illinois and calling for an Urbana chancellor who is truly "chief executive officer" of the campus.

The resolution passed overwhelmingly on a voice vote Monday, continuing a prickly debate about the role of the campus and its chancellor within the university system.

Also Monday, the chairman of a chancellor's search committee said the panel has received 50 nominations so far and hopes to present a short list of candidates to President Michael Hogan in May.

The senate statement calls for "wide consultation" about changes to the UI's chain of command and supports self-governance for the campus where possible and the chancellor's authority as "chief decision-maker" on campus, said Professor Joyce Tolliver, chair of the Senate Executive Committee. Tolliver rejected the notion that the resolution is "anti-president."

"That is true only if you consider that the authority of the chancellor, and of the campus, threatens that of the university system, and of the president. Our position is that this is far from the truth," she said.

"Indeed, we believe that a strong and successful chancellor makes a strong and successful president. Similarly, a strong and thriving Urbana campus makes the wider University of Illinois system better," she said.

Faculty have been peeved by changes made in recent months at the central administration level. Since last June, when an Administrative Restructuring and Review Working Group issued its report on ways to streamline administrative operations, six central administrative positions have been created, Tolliver said.

They include a new vice president for health affairs, a reconstituted vice president for research, and executive directors for human resources, information technology, enrollment management, and labor and employee relations.

The administrative report had recommended – and trustees initially approved – reducing the number of vice presidents to two, though it did suggest a realignment of duties to oversee the UI's sprawling health-care operation. It also suggested changes in information technology, human resources and labor relations, but not necessarily new positions, and did not mention enrollment management, Tolliver said.

However, the report did endorse several working principles, such as clarifying organizational structures to tie responsibility to accountability, and improving coordination of resources to make the university more efficient, noted UI spokesman Thomas Hardy.

"Certainly the executive director positions flow directly from those kinds of principles," he said.

The changes should cut costs and improve efficiency over the long run, Hardy said. He said several people elevated to executive director jobs are taking on new duties and won't be replaced, though they will receive "salary adjustments in keeping with their expanded responsibilities."

Faculty are worried about centralized control over academic matters, such as educational technology or admissions. An external consultant, for example, recommended "recentralizing 'distance education,' a disturbing trend for those of us who lived through the failed Global Campus initiative," Tolliver said, referring to the unpopular online education system that's since been revamped.

Tolliver and other senators complained that Hogan made the changes without properly consulting the University Senates Conference, as outlined in university statutes. Tolliver called for a more thorough and "genuine" consultative process, critical at a time of reduced state support.

She criticized "what seems to be a top-down administrative model that is being imposed incrementally."

She also said the UI needs a broader discussion of the "one university, three campuses" model favored by Hogan and trustees, saying it hasn't been clearly defined.

An ad hoc committee chaired by Professor Paul Diehl is exploring how other universities with multiple campuses are structured, Tolliver announced Monday. She hopes its report will serve as the basis for "an urgently needed conversation on this crucial topic."

Hardy said both Hogan and board Chairman Christopher Kennedy have been "highly engaged" with faculty, meeting with them individually and through Senates Conference.

In a recent letter to Tolliver, Kennedy even suggested a "circuit breaker" between faculty and the board, inviting the chair of the Senates Conference to call him "when traditional lines of communication become overheated,"

Tolliver called it a "very positive suggestion" and welcomed Kennedy's call for a continued dialogue.

Doug Beck, chairman of the chancellor's search committee, said the panel will review its pool of candidates in April with search consultant Isaacsen, Miller, then conduct phone interviews with a narrower group. It hopes to conduct in-person interviews in early May, then recommend a short list to Hogan, who will make his recommendation to UI trustees.