(engine whooshing) (thoughtful music) - Welcome to "At Issue" I'm H Wayne Wilson, thank you, as always, for joining us.

And it was seven years ago already that we had the President of Illinois State University on this program.

And I probably should have had him on again but, somehow, seven years went by and he is retiring.

He came seven years plus ago, so let me apologize for not having you on in the interim.

- It's all right.

- But with your retirement, welcome Larry Dietz.

- Well, thank you very much H, always a pleasure to see you and thanks for having me on today.

- I want to talk about some broader issues and then we'll get into some specifics about Illinois State University, but number one, the general state of higher education today?

- Well, I would say I'm a real optimist for higher education and all of education for that matter, simply because education changes lives and it does so in a very positive way.

We've had in my, I'm in my eighth year now as president, and during that timeframe we've had two budget impasses and we've had a pandemic.

And so both of those have changed the landscape of higher education in the state of Illinois somewhat, but I'm delighted that we have a flat budget for the current fiscal year and for next fiscal year and kudos to the general assembly and to the governor for allowing that to occur.

And we've also had some increases in MAP funding and the AIM HIGH funding, so I'm optimistic for higher education.

And we have a new strategic plan that was just approved by the Illinois Board of Higher Education so I'm optimistic that, you know, the future of higher education is very bright.

- I want to talk about some of those things in just a moment, MAP and AIM HIGH et cetera, but first in your seven plus years what was your biggest satisfactory moment as President of Illinois State?

- Well there's been many.

On an annual basis, the most satisfactory moment is watching our students graduate and so, that's just been really, really terrific.

But I would say within the seven years that we've had success with our academic programs, our faculty are very talented.

We've had success with our students.

We've had success with our services, with our staff and we've been able to add some new academic programs.

We've kept up to speed, in my estimation, on the curriculum so there's really not one thing but I would say, overall, one of the biggest successes that we've had has been stable enrollment and we've been a strong and stable institution.

So I've used those words a lot, strong and stable and that, to me, is what really has characterized the last seven years.

- And you mentioned that you would take a lot of pleasure in watching the young men and women graduate.

- You bet.

You are known as a personable president.

You don't sit at Hovey Hall and say, well, I'm the president but how important is it for you to interact with students?

- Well, to me, it's in my DNA and ought to be in the DNA of universities overall.

That's the purpose that we're there.

Now we do great research but we're not a research institute.

We provide great service but the main reason is to educate and graduate our students and so being involved with them in some way, shape, or form, listening to their needs, trying to meet those needs, you know, hearing their concerns and being in tune with students really helps and it also keeps you in touch with the real reason that the institution is there.

And so we've been gladly learning and teaching since 1857 and the future's very bright for that as well.

So individuals who don't do that, in my estimation, are missing out on one of the most positive aspects of being a president of a university.

- And for those that listen to WGLT radio, now they know where the call letters came from.

- (laughs) That's right.

- If we talk about successes we have to talk about disappointments.

Is there a disappointment, or maybe two disappointments, during your term as president?

- I would say certainly the successes and the the positive stories far outweigh the negatives or the disappointments but I am a little disappointed that, in terms of the per student appropriation that we get from the state, that Illinois State University is by far in the bottom of that whole list of all public universities in the state and I've tried to get that addressed and I've not been successful at that.

And part of it is that the policymakers and our elected officials have recognized that but they, many of them have institutions in their backyards as well and they think that in order for us to get more dollars per student that it would take away from some of the dollars that their students are getting already.

I am gratified though that the new strategic plan for Illinois Board of Higher Education is going to address a funding formula.

And mainly I'm excited that all the public universities are going to be held harmless, in other words they get to keep what they have at this point.

But my hope for the future is that Illinois State will come up at least to the middle part of that list and that range, that's really quite broad, of a per student funding.

- So let's talk about finances at the university.

In doing some research, a little over 14% of your operating budget is coming from the State of Illinois.

- That's right.

- And that surprised me.

I mean, I really didn't know what the percentage would be but I thought it would have been higher than that.

- [Larry] Right.

- Has that been dropping over time and is there any way of reversing that?

- Well, in January, I marked 50 years of working in higher education across three states and four institutions, and one of those institutions twice.

And I would say over those 50 years, and even reflecting back when I was a student in higher education myself, at that time of the state was paying the bulk of the freight for the cost of an education.

Well over 80% of the cost of education was born by the state, that has slipped over decades down to about 14% now.

So, a lot of folks want to know why tuition is going up and why the cost of education is going up and there's an inverse relationship with the state investment having gone down and those costs having to go up because somebody has to pay that freight.

And so the states had other priorities and so, in my estimation, it would have been great had higher education retained its prominence of the 60s and the 70s but that didn't happen.

And so, my hope is that it doesn't get any lower, that we maintain what we have and that we slowly rebuild that.

I don't think we're going to get back to the 80%, by any stretch, but if we can realize the importance that education has on economic development and the education of young people to take jobs that the companies want to have out there and they want to hire students with degrees who will add to the tax base.

We're part of the solution, we're not the problem and we need the investment.

- So, with that, is there a counter to that in terms of scholarships have increased or we can talk about MAP?

- Sure, sure, I think most institutions have increased their own institutional budgets for financial aid, whether it's scholarships, or grants, or other programs, that's happened over time.

I'm delighted to see that the general assembly and the governor have increased MAP and they've increased the AIM HIGH program, which is a meritorious program for academically talented students.

And so, the funding stream in those have gone up and that's going to going to help but still 50% of the students who apply for the MAP grant program and are eligible to receive it don't get it because there's not enough money.

So we need to invest, as a state, more into the MAP program to allow more people to have access to higher education, to get their degrees to become a part of that responsible workforce then that can help pay back, through their taxes, and help fund these kinds of things.

So it just, the disinvestment needs to stop and the investment needs to start.

- Illinois State has not had the problem that other state funded universities have had recently with the decline in enrollment.

I mean, you lost a little bit, but you've stayed right above 20,000.

What do you attribute that to?

- Well, I think several things.

If there was just one thing I'd just say, it's this one thing, but it's much more complex than that.

First of all, we have a stellar academic programs that our faculty have kept our curriculum fresh and meeting the needs of students and the needs of workforce and so having a stellar academic program helps with that.

We also have a stellar enrollment management program and so that's about recruitment and retention of those students.

We rank in the top 10% of the country in our retention and graduation rates, so that helps with our branding, if you will.

If you come to our institution and you graduate you're most likely going to get a job and you'll get a good job.

A third of our students that graduated this last spring, and this has been going on for quite a long period of time, graduated with no debt at all.

That's unheard of in higher education anymore and that's because of our investment in the financial aid program.

Of those students who did have to have a loan, they pay those loans back.

We have one of the lowest default rates in the country.

The national default rate for student loans is about 11 1/2%, we're nearing 3% and so that's a really good story to tell.

- It probably doesn't hurt that you're in the middle of the state.

- It helps, the geography is certainly something that helps us but, in my estimation, people wouldn't come to us just for the geography, they come for the strength of the programs and the services that we have.

- You mentioned AIM HIGH and that's, of course, directed to the academic.

But, in part, that is directed to keep at least some high school graduates who are graduating from high schools in Illinois from going to Indiana, Iowa, et cetera.

- Right, right.

- How concerned are you about the outpouring of students to other state institutions instead of staying in one of the Illinois schools?

- Right, right, well the out migration issue has been one that's been with us for decades and the issue is that Chicago is the third largest market in the country and so, Illinois is always going to lose some students to out-of-state institutions because we're surrounded by other states that want our students and don't have the population center that Chicago represents.

Having said that, in my estimation, programs like AIM HIGH can help some of those students through financial incentives to stay in state and I think we need more of that.

I think we would also have more of those students involved in higher education if we had more money in the MAP program.

AIM HIGH is simply a MAP program with a meritorious part about that related to academic talent.

But now that we have that, it's a good component to be able to offer those perspective students who may be receiving more enticing offers from out-of-state institutions and that happens in some instances.

So I think that program could also be expanded, it would help us out.

- Earlier you mentioned that faculty is staying current with the needs of education and I noted that recently you created the cybersecurity major at Illinois State.

- Your right, yeah.

- How do you create a major and how do you keep track of which ones to keep, which ones to jettison?

- Sure, well there's a lot of research that's done on that in terms of the needs of industry and the needs of the people that hire graduates, but also the fields that students are interested in studying.

This particular instance grew out of a conversation that I had with the CEO of State Farm many years ago and we were talking and I said, is Illinois State doing everything we could possibly do for you, as the university is right here in your backyard, to help your success?

And there was a bit of a pause and he said, I've never been asked the question.

I said, well, shame on us, it's a sincere question and he said, well, big companies are interested in cybersecurity and data analytics.

What are you doing in those areas?

And that resulted in a longer conversation and State Farm helped us with that cybersecurity program.

Similar kind of an interest in engineering, we just got approved by our board of trustees to pursue a College of Engineering.

We're preparing our materials for the Illinois Board of Higher Education to seek their approval.

Hopefully that'll happen either this summer or perhaps in the fall, and the same kind of thing with that in that there's a workforce need for engineers that's not being met even by the existing engineering programs in the state.

So, we're trying to help with that.

I think that'll also be another way that Illinois State can assist with workforce needs and help students get a degree that's going to be very marketable for them.

- I want to address one more financial situation and it's really two pronged.

The state went through, and I believe it was 2015 to 2017, a 26 month period where there was a stalemate on the budget.

There was no budget.

- Right.

- And then, as soon as you got out of that, two years later here comes COVID-19.

How much of an impact, financial or otherwise, did those two events have on the university?

- Well, the first, the budget impasse, our enrollment was strong and stable and that's really what what kept us in much better stead than most other institutions in the state.

So the impact, in my estimation, overall had more of an issue about does the state not believe education is important at all?

And does the state not believe that a lot of not-for-profits aren't important at all, either?

And so it really kind of created a crisis of confidence, in my estimation, in the public to say, you know, should I really send my son or daughter to a university in the state of Illinois because the state doesn't have a budget and therefore the institutions don't have a budget.

So you had to get over that and we had to message differently with our prospective students about, well, we've been here since 1857, the oldest public university in the state and regardless of what the state does we're going to continue to be around and we're going to be strong and stable.

And that message resonated with that population, so our enrollment stayed in good shape during that timeframe and that really was what helped us in a very different way than some of the other institutions.

The pandemic was quite a different situation and we're still reeling from that.

The federal stimulus money has helped dramatically and so we're very appreciative of that.

State money and having a flat budget has helped dramatically.

We still have losses as a result of that, but we're getting along.

- It seems odd to hear you say that a flat budget is a good thing.

- I know, I know.

Well, when we've been through years where you didn't have a budget.

- I suppose so.

- It's all in context and so, but you know, would everybody like to have more?

Of course, but in these kinds of tough economic times I think a lot of folks understand that if you can just keep what you've got right now, until the economy rebounds a bit, that there'll be time to increase that budget down the road, and we hope that happens.

- Is there a requirement of any kind this fall for students coming in with regard to COVID 19?

- We're debating that and we've been debating it for a while.

We right now have been messaging that it's expected, expected and mandated or required or different words and so, what we want students to do, for that matter, all of our faculty staff and students, is to be responsible and be respectful.

We know that some people do not want to get the vaccine for philosophical or religious reasons.

So those individuals, we would ask that they wear a mask, we would ask that they test on a regular basis to make sure that they're safe and that they're not creating safety concerns for anybody around them, but all of this is really self-report.

To say that you're going to mandate and require when you know that a certain percentage of your population won't comply with that, I think the better message is to be respectful and be responsible and act in that way.

Of course, we would hope that a hundred percent of all of our population would get vaccinated, that's the best it can be, but it probably won't happen that way and so we're still kicking around the idea.

Matter of fact, I've got meetings late this afternoon about that.

We typically issue statements on Thursdays and so I would expect we'll have a statement by this Thursday.

- And just for clarification, this was taped in advance of his retirement.

He actually retired on July one, so he's not working past his retirement date.

- Right, right.

- [H] Dr. Kinsey will be taking care of that.

- That's right, Dr. Kinsey will be in the chair.

- About two years ago a group of African-American students protested that they felt that there was diversity at Illinois State University but there wasn't inclusiveness.

- Right.

- What steps have you taken in those interim two years to try to correct that situation, if in fact that assessment was correct?

- Yeah, well, the first thing that we did is commit to meeting with that group of students, the leaders of that group of students, and I personally committed to that and had our vice-presidential team and our Dean of Students team meet with that group and we've had ongoing meetings ever since that time including all the way through this spring.

And so we've listened, I hired the first Assistant to the President for Diversity and Inclusion in the history of the institution, last July one.

She's worked very hard.

She was involved in a lot of our diversity initiatives to begin with, but she came from the faculty, Dr. Doris Houston, and she's coordinating our efforts on the campus within all the different units to try to address the needs that they talked about.

We also are, later this summer, hope to open the first ever multicultural center on the campus and out of that facility, a lot of great programming will happen that will address diversity inclusion and equity issues.

And so, we've really taken that to heart and we've listened and we've done a lot of training.

A lot of our faculty have voluntarily gone through a lot of training issues and so we've tried to address it as best we can.

- Well, mentioning faculty, how difficult is it to hire minority faculty members?

Because one of the issues that the African-American students were concerned about was we're not seeing a lot of diversity in the staff and faculty.

- Right.

And our numbers of students from underrepresented backgrounds have increased considerably over the seven years that I've been in this role.

So, not surprisingly, as that number increases they will say, we have some specific needs that we'd like to the university to address.

So to me, you know, those meetings and those demands that they put forth is a natural evolutionary kind of process.

And so, making sure that you're sitting down and talking about these issues is the most important thing and then planning.

You plan your work and you work your plan and so we planned our work and now we're working the plan.

The issue about recruiting faculty from underrepresented populations is a very serious issue for us.

We have a new provost who has some great ideas about what, in some areas, is called cluster hiring, or a cohort hiring of underrepresented faculty.

I think that's a strategy that will probably go forth under the new president and the relatively new provost.

So I think there's ways to address that but every institution that I know in the country, that's a predominantly Caucasian institution, is going through the same thing and so I think we can learn from each other and try to address this.

And the students are exactly right, they want to see people that look like them not in every classroom, necessarily, as the faculty member, but a higher percentage.

- And about five years ago, you instituted an effort to bring more diversity in terms of international students, Thai issue.

You had about 2% of your student enrollment in that regard in 2016.

- Right.

- Any success there?

- Well, we were really doing well until the pandemic.

We had worked with an organization called the Into ISU organization and they're an international organization that helps institutions recruit international students.

And we were doing pretty well until the pandemic hit and then that put the kibosh on everything and so we are renegotiating our agreement with them, over the summer, and that's still a goal.

And so, in my estimation, a lot of institutions of our size will have anywhere between five and 10% of their population from other countries.

And a big part of that is to try to diversify the student population and learn from people from other cultures, other countries and we still have that as a goal but we'll be post pandemic here.

I think we're already gaining speed on that and I think it will be a success.

- You are, as this airs, you are retired.

What do you and Marlene, your wife, have in the future?

- Well, we plan to stay in the Bloomington-Normal community.

We bought an old house that we're rehabbing right now and it's not going to be ready until probably the end of the summer so we're going to be house sitting with some friends who spend the summers in Wisconsin.

So, we're fortunate to have a place to go but we'll be staying in the community and we'll be cheering the Redbirds on but it'll probably be from a bleacher seat versus a better seat, but we're still gonna cheer on the Redbirds.

- Are you a handyman?

Or are you learning to be a handyman?

- I try, I try and sometimes by trying results in somebody else coming in and not only doing a better job, but making more money than perhaps if I'd of just let him do it to begin with.

- [H] Such, you're learning.

- I'm learning, I'm learning - All right, in the final 15 seconds, just a final thought.

- A final thought is simply gratitude.

I feel blessed to have served in this role, I feel fortunate to have served for over 50 years in higher education.

My wife and I feel very grateful to have been able to serve Illinois State University in these roles and we are just honored to have done that and look forward to supporting higher education at Illinois State University.

- Congratulations on your retirement and thank you for your service over the past seven plus years as president of Illinois State University.

- Thank you very much.

- Larry Dietz, President of ISU, thank you for being with us on "At Issue."

- Thanks so much.

- And thank you for being with us on "At Issue."

Next time we'll be back and we're going to stay in the Bloomington-Normal genre, so to speak, by having the newly elected Mayor of Bloomington, Mboka Mwilambwe, and the fifth term mayor of Normal on "At Issue", Chris Koos.

Both of them join us for a live program next time on "At Issue" (thoughtful music)