CHICAGO —The University of Illinois Board of Trustees approved hiring two top administrators and authorized paying bills in the upcoming fiscal year.

Susan J. Koch will take office July 1 as vice president and chancellor of the Springfield campus.

Joe G.N. "Skip" Garcia will become the UI's new vice president for health affairs.

Koch, formerly provost and vice president for academic affairs at Northern Michigan University, was appointed in April by President Michael J. Hogan. She replaces interim Vice President and Chancellor Harry Berman.

She was associate provost and dean of the graduate college at the University of Northern Iowa before taking her current position at Northern Michigan University in 2007.

Garcia was formerly the head of medicine at the University of Chicago. He is a specialist in the genetic basis of lung disease and the prevention and treatment of inflammatory lung injury. He served as director of the Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine at Johns Hopkins University from 1998 to 2005.

He earned his bachelor's degree in biology from the University of Dallas and his medical degree from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School.

The board also approved a resolution Thursday to keep the UI operating legally after its current fiscal year ends June 30. The annual resolution is required to pay bills and maintain operations until the state finalizes a new budget for the fiscal year that begins July 1.

The resolution authorizes expenditures based on fiscal 2011 funding levels until the state's fiscal 2012 budget is in place.