Board of Trustees discusses expansion, baseball, and the Global Campus

November 19, 2008
By Ashley Rueff
Staff Writer

The University of Illinois' Board of Trustees approved an updated version of UIS's master plan Thursday, giving the go ahead to develop campus past the ring road.

The master plan is the physical map of campus that includes future buildings and projects the university wants to build.       

The Board accepted an updated version of the plan at its UIS meeting that includes additional student housing, a retail area, a driving range, a senior living center, and a baseball complex.     

Chancellor Richard Ringeisen said UIS wants to pursue developing a retail area, often referred to as “Campus Town,” outside of the ring road on 11th Street. The area could include restaurants and retail stores.     

The university has tried to attract developers to invest in Campus Town before, but hasn't had much success. With the new Wal-Mart near campus and the extension of 11th Street, Ringeisen hopes more developers will be interested in setting up shop on campus. He said some businesses expressed interest in building on campus earlier in the year.   

“But that was before the bottom fell out of the economy, so developers might be a little more cautious now,” he said.     

Also, there are still parts of the 2000 master plan that haven't been built yet, including another residence hall and more classroom space.   

Ringeisen said he expects additional student housing to be the next new project on campus, but has no definite plan or timeline. The chancellor said he is awaiting a report on enrollment patterns at UIS to see how the university might need to expand on-campus housing.  

Also on the master plan is a baseball complex to accommodate the creation of a baseball program at UIS. Ringeisen wants to have a baseball complex on campus, but the project would require receiving a very generous donation from outside the university.     

“We will start baseball in a couple years but we may or may not have a place to play,” Ringeisen said. Without an on-campus baseball complex, the university's baseball team will have to find a facility in Springfield to use.   

In other business, the Board of Trustees approved the plan to pursue accreditation for Global Campus, an online component of the university system. President Joseph White wants to make Global Campus a fourth, independent campus within the university system. Currently, degree programs controlled by Global Campus are done in conjunction with one of the three ground campuses.     

Some parts of the university system expressed concern about making Global Campus an independent part of the system. To soothe those concerns, members of the board said they plan to work with the faculty and administration on those issues.     

“They're going to seek accreditation for that campus, but in the mean time they're going to work through the issues with the faculty,” Ringeisen said.

The accreditation process could take two years or longer. The online institution will use the accreditation of the University of Illinois at Chicago to begin developing new courses until it receives its own accreditation.