Drawing to a close a long tenure at Northeastern Illinois University, Salme Harju Steinberg on Tuesday announced that she will leave the school’s presidency in 2007 after a replacement is found.
Highly popular among disparate campus constituencies, Steinberg arrived at the school in 1975 as a history professor and climbed the ranks to the president’s office, taking the helm 11 years ago. She oversaw a continued growth in the student population, which rose about 20 percent during her tenure, to more than 12,000 today from roughly 10,000.
She also oversaw and fostered a significant growth in that population’s diversity. More than 47 languages are spoken on the campus and more than 60 percent of Northeastern students are minorities.
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“It is time for me to begin the process of saying farewell,” Steinberg wrote in a letter to the university community.
Her letter urged collaboration among various university groups and individuals in seeking her replacement. She also thanked the school community for supporting her over such a long period.
“It has been a wonderful opportunity to serve as president,” Steinberg said in an interview. “I am a historian and I just think it’s time, the time to look at other kinds of opportunities.”
Steinberg, who also served as chairwoman of the history department and provost, opened her presidency with a controversial move that many people today credit with solidifying the school’s academic foundation–scrapping the school’s Division I athletic programs. The action saved $2 million per year that Steinberg used to reduce student fees and enhance academics.
She developed programs that sent students abroad for study, something rarely available to those who attend universities like Northeastern, where much of the student body comes from first-generation college students and non-traditional students, such as working parents.
“Her heart is sincere and she has a clear vision of what it means to be at Northeastern, and that vision has been carried out throughout her tenure,” said Murrell Duster, the school’s dean of academic development and its affirmative action officer.
Her presidency was marked by a troubling period, however, when the faculty went on strike for 2 1/2 weeks in fall 2004. But even the union president credited Steinberg for helping to resolve the strike, cement a solid contract and open an era of healing among factions.
“She came up through the faculty ranks and so we have always considered her one of us,” said Edmund Hunt, president of the University Professionals of Illinois, the faculty union. “We always relied on her to make a decision that was good for the university and, in general, that is what she consistently did.”
In recent years, like the leaders at most Illinois universities, Steinberg struggled with funding problems amid tightening state education budgets. She lamented that there is work to be done to improve campus buildings, though capital funding is short.
Still, colleagues said that Steinberg will be a difficult act to follow. She will leave a legacy in which academics is the vital function of the university, they said.
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