Embattled U of I president likely to address faculty

CHAMPAIGN — The chairman of the University of Illinois’ board of trustees says he fully supports Michael Hogan despite calls from some faculty for the university president to resign.

Faculty leaders, meanwhile, have invited Hogan to speak to them after weeks of building tension between the president and some of the university’s teachers.

In a letter to faculty Monday, board Chairman Christopher Kennedy said Hogan is an effective leader and has recruited strong administrators to the university since being hired in 2010. Kennedy mentioned the new chancellors at two of the university’s three campuses, Phyllis Wise at Urbana-Champaign and Susan Koch in Springfield.

“We believe President Hogan has been instrumental in attracting this team,” Kennedy wrote. “The Board continues to believe that President Hogan has the capacity to attract and retain a great team, and we continue to support his efforts, and we hope you will, too.”

Last week’s call for Hogan to step down came in a letter to trustees from 130 faculty members. Those who signed included Nobel Prize winner Anthony Leggett, Pulitzer Prize winner Leon Dash and most of the university’s endowed chairs and professors.

“In our view (Hogan) lacks the values, commitments, management style, ethics, and even manners, needed to lead this university, and his presidency should be ended at the earliest opportunity,” the letter said.

Assistant Spanish professor Joyce Tolliver said Urbana-Champaign’s Faculty Senate has asked Hogan to speak to faculty. Senate staff members were talking with Hogan’s staff Tuesday about possible dates, said Tolliver, who is the Senate’s vice chairwoman.

University spokesman Tom Hardy said Hogan likely will accept the invitation. “I expect that he will, depending on scheduling options,” Hardy said.

The letter criticizing Hogan laid out faculty complaints that have been building against him for months. Among other things, there have been complaints about anonymous letters sent to faculty leaders trying to blunt their criticism of an enrollment management plan favored by Hogan.

An investigation concluded the emails likely were written by Hogan’s then-chief of staff, Lisa Troyer, who has since resigned but moved into a tenured teaching position. She denies she wrote the emails. The investigation found that Hogan neither wrote nor distributed the emails.

The letter also criticized Hogan for other steps the authors say threaten the autonomy of the three campuses.

In his letter Monday, Kennedy said some of those concerns are “peripheral to the core values that we think a strong president brings.”

But he added, “The fact that each of you is concerned about these points, though, is concerning in and of itself. You are the heart and the soul of the University, and your presence here continues to make the University great.”

Hogan was hired in 2010 from the University of Connecticut to replace B. Joseph White, who resigned amid controversy over the influence of politics on admissions at the Urbana-Champaign campus.