UI's annual faculty meeting will have new roster at top
URBANA – Monday's annual meeting of the University of Illinois faculty may require a lineup card.
Normally the session hosted by the campus senate is a chance for professors to question the president and chancellor, and sometimes the provost, on all manner of issues.
This time there will be four speakers, all with an extra adjective in front of their names.
Outgoing President B. Joseph White will be there, along with interim President-in-waiting Stanley Ikenberry. So will departing Chancellor Richard Herman, whose resignation takes effect about the time the faculty meeting concludes. Last will be interim Provost Robert Easter, who will share the chancellor's job with Ikenberry starting Tuesday.
Got all that?
If you're a bit confused about the new administrative hierarchy at the UI, it's understandable.
The fallout from the "Category I" admissions probe – which found up to 50 politically connected students a year gained admittance over more qualified applicants – has left the UI with a complicated flow chart.
The president(s)
White, who as president oversees all three UI campuses, resigned last month. He will leave office Dec. 31 but plans to remain on the faculty and participate in fundraising. Ikenberry will then take over as interim president until a replacement is named, with the goal of having a new president in place by the start of the 2010-11 school year.
In the meantime, from his new office inside the Henry Administration Building's presidential suite, Ikenberry has been working closely with White to ensure a smooth transition and to get up to speed on budgets and other pressing issues.
"Joe and I are in constant communication," Ikenberry said Thursday.
He's sat in on planning sessions, participated in conversations with UI Board of Trustees Chair Christopher Kennedy, and met with faculty leaders on the Senate Executive Committee.
"He's not just going to sit and wait until Jan. 1 to do anything by a long shot," said Senate Executive Committee Chair Joyce Tolliver, who invited Ikenberry to last week's meeting.
The chancellor(s)
Ikenberry's job got a bit more complicated this past week when Herman, the top administrator at the Urbana campus, announced his own resignation. As of Tuesday, Herman will serve as special assistant to Ikenberry until the end of June. Herman will then become a mathematics professor and go on a one-year sabbatical before returning to the College of Education faculty in 2011.
Rather than appoint an interim chancellor, Ikenberry will share Herman's duties with Easter for several months, and possibly longer. Easter, longtime dean of the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences, was named interim provost in June to replace Linda Katehi, who is now chancellor of the University of California at Davis.
Easter would have been the obvious choice for interim chancellor, Ikenberry said, but "that would have removed some of his focus from where it really needs to be" – working with deans and department heads on the day-to-day academic business of the university. The provost is the campus' chief academic and budget officer.
Who will do what? Ikenberry said he can deal with issues that are administrative or campuswide in nature while Easter focuses on student affairs, research and academic functions of the chancellor's job.
Easter was in China last week, but the two had "preliminary conversations" about the new arrangement before he left and have communicated by e-mail, Ikenberry said.
"He and I, I think, will have a superb working relationship. I'm extremely comfortable with him. I admire him, and I think he has the complete trust of both the faculty and the deans," Ikenberry said.
Tolliver said she hasn't heard much apprehension from faculty about the unusual setup because of the widespread support Ikenberry and Easter enjoy on campus. Ikenberry, UI president from 1979 to 1995, is a nationally known figure in higher-education circles, and Easter has been on the UI faculty since 1976.
"My own personal feeling is that maybe two lesser individuals would not be able to handle this. But there's just so much trust in the good will and in the expertise and in the knowledge of the two of them, that I don't really have any qualms at all about the arrangement," Tolliver said.
More common, she said, is a sense of relief that the turmoil from the past five months may be winding down.
The presidential assistant
Ikenberry and Herman met over lunch Thursday to discuss their new working relationship in more detail.
"We had a good discussion," Ikenberry said.
Herman's prime task, he said, will be to provide a complete briefing of "all the hot spots on his agenda."
He will also be charged with implementing the I-STEM initiative to encourage more teachers in science, technology and engineering, a project of the College of Education that Herman elevated to a campuswide effort. He chairs a national commission working on the same issue through the Association of Public Land Grant Universities.
An avid fundraiser for the university, Herman said he expects to continue to work with donors after stepping down but it's not part of his official assignment.
One thing on Ikenberry's "to do" list: finding Herman a space to work. That will likely be in the College of Education, where Herman will be assigned once he returns from his sabbatical in 2011.
As both interim president and chancellor, Ikenberry said he'll be looking for opportunities to streamline operations and save money. One possible target is the "interface" between the university and campus administration, and that could mean consolidating administrative jobs.
"Now would be an ideal time," Ikenberry said. "There are certain things that maybe an interim president can do more easily than a permanent president."
Ikenberry has no plans to discontinue one of Herman's favorite programs, Illinois Promise, which has helped hundreds of low-income students graduate with no debt.
He doesn't expect the search for a new chancellor to be addressed until after the new president is on board. That decision should be made by the new leadership, he said.
The resignation
Ikenberry wasn't "centrally involved" in the negotiations over Herman's resignation in recent weeks but said he "tried to be helpful where I could."
He helped draft Herman's new assignment as his special assistant and smooth the chancellor's transition back to the faculty by working with the math department and College of Education.
The effective date for Herman's resignation was "by mutual agreement," Ikenberry said. Herman wanted to work through a national conference at the UI this weekend on the future of higher education and land-grant universities, which drew senior government leaders, Lincoln scholars and the presidents of public universities.
He also wanted one more chance to address the faculty on Monday, Ikenberry said.
Just a few weeks ago Herman stood before student and faculty senators asking for the chance to lead the campus for "months, days or even a moment longer." The senate turned him down, recommending that he and White resign.
"A lot of people are in shock," Tolliver said. "We knew that it was coming. We didn't know it would be effective so soon."
But she also said Herman is a decisive personality and wouldn't want to drag it out.
"He was conscious of the need of the campus to move forward as quickly as possible," she said.
As for the upcoming faculty meeting, Tolliver said White is still the UI president through Dec. 31, but she also wanted to formally reintroduce Ikenberry to the faculty and give him a chance to answer longer-term questions.
"I think I'm going to ask for forgiveness first, just in advance for whatever I do wrong," Ikenberry joked.
Also on this date
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- Herman: 'It's good to have the ambiguity resolved'
- Slain soldier returning to Rantoul this morning
- Scramble for county board, statehouse seats to begin
- Champaign in no rush to set up police review board
- Champaign council willing to wait for state police report
- Vermilion County men taking charge with vehicles
- Judge denies bid to reduce sentence in fatal DUI crash
- Outgoing UI chancellor opens up on his thoughts, views
- Obituaries