UI trustees' committee approves Easter, Hogan agreements
Editor's note: See Sunday's News-Gazette for a Q&A with Robert Easter.
CHICAGO — The next president of the University of Illinois will make about $200,000 less than the departing one.
The executive committee of the University of Illinois Board of Trustees on Friday approved employment agreements for Michael Hogan, who resigned as UI president on Thursday, and for Robert Easter, who will take the position in July.
The full board of trustees is expected to approve the agreements in May.
Hogan will take a one-year sabbatical starting as soon as he resigns in July, at a salary of $285,100 — the average of the top 10 faculty members, as his original contract provided.
Easter will be president for two years or until a new president is named. He is president-designate at an annual salary of $250,000 until Hogan's resignation July 1. Then, Easter's salary will go to $450,000. Hogan was earning $651,000.
Hogan's resignation came amid considerable furor from faculty members over a number of issues, including centralization of enrollment and a perceived loss of autonomy for the campuses, especially at the Urbana campus. His chief of staff, Lisa Troyer, resigned after anonymous emails discouraging faculty consensus on enrollment changes were traced to her computer. And emails released to The News-Gazette under Freedom of Information Act requests showed what some faculty saw as "bullying" behavior toward new Chancellor Phyllis Wise.
Many of the campus' most influential professors signed letters that grew increasingly critical of Hogan, eventually asking the trustees to fire him as soon as possible. The board met with him early in March and instructed him to work to rebuild relationships with the faculty.
But the agreement between Hogan and the trustees specifies that his resignation "in no way constitutes an admission that any basis exists for the Board of Trustees to terminate Hogan as president for any reason or without cause."
Faculty response was generally positive following the selection of Easter to become the UI's 19th president.
Easter had fulfilled top administrative duties on an interim basis for the past couple of years, and has been on the campus for decades. He spent seven years as the dean of the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences.
He was chosen, UI board Chairman Chris Kennedy said Thursday, to avoid "a holding pattern" while a search was conducted for a new president.
Hogan became president on July 1, 2010, leaving the same post at the University of Connecticut. He is a historian by background.
He will be allowed to choose whether to work at the Urbana, Springfield or Chicago campus when he returns from sabbatical in 2013, and the UI will pay his moving expenses if he leaves the Urbana campus.
He is the second consecutive president to resign. The UI is paying B. Joseph White $288,700 per year after he resigned in the midst of the Category I admissions scandal. He is teaching two to three business courses per year.
Former Chancellor Richard Herman, who also resigned over Category I, is now at the UI's Chicago campus, earning $244,444. He was to teach two online courses this year, one in April and another in the summer. A course for the spring semester was canceled for lack of enrollment.
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Whew!
Finally, back to normal. Back to the status quo. The outsiders are finally gone and we are back to where everyone knows and likes each other. Faculty and administrators at UIUC don’t have to worry about change. Back to the tried and true. No more ridicules ideas of efficiency and cost savings. Don’t have to worry about sharing our resources or reputation with those other campuses. Most of all we don’t have to worry about those outsiders telling us what to do and acting like a big old bully. What a relief. And it sure is nice that the board no long has to worry about making the hard decisions that are required when you hires someone to carry out your agenda. No more mean cartoons either. This buys them a couple years to go find something else to do like maybe enter politics or something. Thank goodness that things are back to normal.
And the decline to mediocre continues.....
No more "my goals are your goals." No more complete disregard for the distinctiveness of each institution that is part of the system. No more spinning internal reports as the product of "external review consultants". No more anonymous e-mails. No more cardboard effigies of wannabe emperors around campus. No more Chief-of-Staff @ 200+K/year.
Amen and glory to the normal!
Normal is better than unethical. Normal is better than a complete mismatch for the U of I. Let's hope that the trustees return to normal as well. Hopefully their tolerance for incompetence and unethical behavior has been reset to higher standards.
It was more sarcastic than was necessary, but mcleanm72 makes a good point: Illinois didn't get to where it is by being resistant to new ideas.
I don't like how Hogan went about his business. But what worries me is that the Board asked the President to carry its water, then dumped him when the going got rough. The Board needs to be more public and more clear about its agenda. Otherwise, the Hogan situation will continue to revive itself with future administrators.
I totally concur on the need for the Board to be more public and clear about its agenda. Less time in executive session would be a good start... It is time to re-examine the way the board members get appointed, too. I favor a system with multiple layers of accountability. Elect a set directly from the citizens, allow the governor to select another few, get the alumni in the selection process as well.
"But what worries me is that the Board asked the President to carry its water, then dumped him when the going got rough."
Perhaps you have information that we don't. I was under the impression that Mike Hogan resigned, and my sense was that this was due primarily to (1) publicly known faculty objection to his continued tenure as president and (2) the as-yet unresolved "Lisa Troyer situation." Based on what I've read in the media about Hogan's communications with others and about the "fake e-mail" fiasco, I, as a University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign alum and current AP, cannot imagine how he possibly could've "restored trust" when there are plenty of indicators that his behavior and words at times have, at least, been impolitic and perhaps even go further into "unethical."
A decline to mediocrity? I think the number of scandals involving higher administration at this university may explain that. It's certainly not the fault of our departments and units that continue to be highly rated and deemed "dream admissions" by graduating high school seniors.
And what's the deal with the sabbatical year? Did I read his contract wrong? I thought he was entitled to a sabbatical only after five years of service as the president. He'll probably use the sabbatical year to round up another high-paying position (which is sort of good, because it makes me nauseous to think of him staying at the U of I).
"I was under the impression that Mike Hogan resigned, and my sense was that this was due primarily to (1) publicly known faculty objection to his continued tenure as president and (2) the as-yet unresolved "Lisa Troyer situation." Based on what I've read in the media about Hogan's communications with others and about the "fake e-mail" fiasco, I, as a University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign alum and current AP, cannot imagine how he possibly could've "restored trust" when there are plenty of indicators that his behavior and words at times have, at least, been impolitic and perhaps even go further into "unethical."
I agree that restoring trust would have been difficult at best, and more likely impossible. That's what makes me think Hogan took a fall for the board. They weren't upfront with the faculty about what they wanted, although in hindsight it is clear.
(As an aside, every president since Stukel has tried to pump up Chicago at the expense of Champaign, and the faculty has always to some degree seen through the pretense and protested. So why the Board didn't recognize the fight they were going to face is beyond me.)
The Troyer thing -- which Hogan could have survived had he built more political capital prior to trying to change the entire system -- was the final straw. The faculty at that point couldn't be appeased. Hogan had to resign because the Board covered their own butts instead of definitively saying they are trying to consolidate power outside of Champaign -- or better, publicly mapping the plan. (Maybe they didn't do the latter because they didn't want to undercut Hogan's perceived authority.) Why do I think this? Because since the resignation, both the Board and Hogan have been a little clearer that he was asked to do certain things regarding improving efficiency, etc.
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