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Illinois Institute of Technology, one of the nation's top engineering and architecture schools, is about to take on the biggest redesign in its 102-year history.
Faced with budget shortfalls, increasing competition and an inadequate endowment, the South Side institution last week began cutting staff and has taken the unusual step of offering buyouts to tenured faculty.
The school also is proposing to eliminate 40% of its bachelor's degree programs, reduce its undergraduate enrollment by 20% and revamp the way it instructs students.
Although all universities are facing the prospect of fewer college-age students and cuts in government support, the dramatic attempt to re-engineer Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) is prompted by a host of internal problems.
Those problems include a $3-million budget deficit projected for the fiscal year ending May 31, a student population that relies heavily on financial aid and more intractable problems--namely, a 120-acre main campus that borders a high-crime neighborhood.
Despite widespread speculation both inside and outside the university that IIT will move all or parts of its main complex, IIT officials said they are committed to the Ludwig Mies van der Rohe-designed campus on South State Street between 31st and 35th streets.
At least for now.
School officials hope that the proposed restructuring--which will be presented to the school's board of trustees on May 23--will help attract high achievers now lured away by lower-cost public universities, students able to foot a larger portion of their tuition bill, additional research contracts and more corporate support.
"It was clear to me that the institution needed to have significant change because of what's going on in the country in higher education and changes in global industry," said IIT President Lewis Collens. "What we're trying to do is what industry is doing--trying to improve quality and lower the costs of producing graduates."
A key problem for IIT is its heavy reliance on undergraduate...