Overall Rating Gold - expired
Overall Score 72.89
Liaison Miriam Keep
Submission Date Feb. 27, 2019
Executive Letter Download

STARS v2.1

University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
PA-3: Participatory Governance

Status Score Responsible Party
Complete 2.50 / 3.00 Micah Kenfield
Sustainability Coordinator
Institute for Sustainability, Energy, and Environment
"---" indicates that no data was submitted for this field

Part 1

Do the institution’s students have a representative body through which they can participate in governance (e.g. a student council)? :
Yes

Do the institution’s students have an elected representative on the institution’s highest governing body?:
Yes

If yes to either of the above, provide:

A brief description of the bodies and mechanisms through which students are engaged in governance, including information to support each affirmative response above:
Besides the Illinois Student Senate, 50 students serve on the faculty senate at Urbana-Champaign. In addition, one student is elected each year by the student population as a whole to serve on the Board of Trustees. More information about the role of the student trustees can be found at https://www.bot.uillinois.edu/about.

Do the institution’s staff members have a representative body through which they can participate in governance (e.g. a staff council)?:
Yes

Do the institution’s non-supervisory staff members have an elected representative on the institution’s highest governing body?:
No

If yes to either of the above, provide:

A brief description of the bodies and mechanisms through which staff are engaged in governance, including information to support each affirmative response above:
The Council of Academic Professionals is an elected assembly serving the interests of full-time, part-time, and retired academic professionals at Illinois. We provide direct and concerted communication between academic professional staff and administrative officers of the University.

Do the institution’s teaching and research faculty have a representative body through which they can participate in governance (e.g. a faculty senate)?:
Yes

Do the institution’s teaching and research faculty have an elected representative on the institution’s highest governing body? :
No

If yes to either of the above, provide:

A brief description of the bodies and mechanisms through which teaching and research faculty are engaged in governance, including information to support each affirmative response above:
Elections are held each year for faculty to serve on the Faculty Senate.

Part 2

Does the institution have written policies and procedures to identify and engage external stakeholders (i.e. local residents) in land use planning, capital investment projects, and other institutional decisions that affect the community?:
Yes

A copy of the written policies and procedures:
2015 Framework and Responses Final.pdf

The policies and procedures:
As a recipient of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching's community-engagement classification, the University makes a number of commitments to community partnerships in a number of forms. To excerpt from our 2015 recertification application: “Engagement is the partnership of university knowledge and resources with those of the public and private sectors to enrich scholarship, research, and creative activity; enhance curriculum, teaching and learning; prepare educated, engaged citizens; strengthen democratic values and civic responsibility; address critical societal issues; and contribute to the public good.” Stated more simply, the University is publicly engaged when its faculty, staff, and students collaborate with external constituents to address needs in society and to enhance the University’s scholarly capabilities. The last phrase of the previous sentence states a critically important, but often overlooked, aspect of public engagement: in successful public engagement, learning occurs in two directions, from the university to society and from society to the university. Clearly, research to advance disciplinary knowledge and transfer of that disciplinary knowledge through formal education are central to the University’s mission and objectives. For the publicly engaged university, additionally, societal issues serve as a powerful lens influencing its agenda and activities. The publicly engaged university sees itself as part of society, with responsibilities to address societal opportunities and challenges. In recent years, the importance of public engagement at this institution and at the national level has become significantly greater and is now more than ever recognized as a critically important role of the faculty in serving the needs of the state, nation and world.

Does the institution have formal participatory or shared governance bodies through which community members representing the interests of the following stakeholder groups can regularly participate in institutional governance?:
Yes or No
Local government and/or educational organizations Yes
Private sector organizations Yes
Civil society (e.g. NGOs, NPOs) Yes

If yes to one or more of the above, provide:

A brief description of the bodies and mechanisms through which external stakeholders are engaged in institutional governance (including information about each stakeholder group selected above):
All of the above groups are represented in some form in our Campus Master Plan Community Engagement Advisory Committee (https://masterplan-illinois.com/community-advisory-committee). Additionally, a number of task forces and advisory councils include outside members of the community.

Optional Fields 

The website URL where information about the programs or initiatives is available:
http://www.senate.illinois.edu/elecind.asp

Additional documentation to support the submission:
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Data source(s) and notes about the submission:
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