Two of the University’s Stewarding Excellence project teams will submit their written summary reports Friday to Interim Chancellor and Provost Robert Easter and Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs Richard Wheeler.

The two project teams, IT@Illinois and Public Engagement, are part of a 15-team initiative started by the University to consolidate resources within the University system.

The initiative comes as a result of $466 million in state funding owed to the University.

On April 2, the administration received written summary reports from the project team for the Institute of Aviation, which is exploring whether to continue freshman admittance into its Professional Pilot program as well as other changes within the institute. Summary reports were also submitted by the Refocusing Scholarships project team by the April 2 deadline.

The project team for Revenue Generation, announced by Stewarding Excellence on March 5, is set to submit its summary report May 17. Chaired by Mary Kalantzis, dean of the College of Education, the team is looking into alternative revenue sources to “build on our strengths to maintain our mission,” Kalantzis said.

“We can’t just wring our hands and cut everything to the bone to survive. The University has an extraordinary heritage,” Kalantzis said. “To maintain our mission we have to find alternative revenue sources.”

Kalantzis said the revenue team has broken into subgroups that will look at changing the revenue-raising mind set, expanding program offerings online, expanding research income and retention of royalties from intellectual property.

The team will continue to have weekly meetings as well as outreach opportunities with the Champaign-Urbana community.

Also announced March 5 was the project team for Academic Unit Reviews.

The project team was created “to explore structural and organizational changes, including possible consolidations, to realize budgetary savings,” according to the team’s charge letter on the Stewarding Excellence Web site.

The Academic Unit Reviews team will focus specifically on colleges with fewer than 40 faculty members, including the Graduate School of Library and Information Science, the School of Labor and Employee Relations, the College of Media and the School of Social Work.

“I believe that it’s fundamentally looking to see if there might be partnerships with other units on campus, or rearranging units in such a way that they accomplish savings while preserving and enhancing what we do,” said Walt Harrington, interim dean of the College of Media.

Vice Chancellor Wheeler said that the organizational changes will be expressed in the Academic Unit Reviews summary report that will be delivered June 1.

“There have been no decisions about any of the possible organization changes, including no change at all, that could emerge from such a review,” he said. “And none will be made until after the project team has completed its review.”