CHICAGO — In his first public meeting with the Board of Trustees as University president, Iowa native Michael Hogan said he feels “at home on every single level” in his new position at the board’s meeting Thursday at the Chicago campus.
The board and many other members of the University faculty and administration welcomed Hogan at Student Center West, 828 N. Wolcott Ave., in Chicago, discussed the budget and listened to presentations about programs at the three campuses.
“You have come to the University of Illinois in perilous times,” said Kathryn Eisenhart, associate professor of Legal Studies at the Springfield campus.
Some of the obstacles recently faced by the University include last year’s resignation of all but two trustees, former Chancellor Richard Herman and former President B. Joseph White and the search for President Michael Hogan.
“There has been nothing ordinary about this past year,” Eisenhart said.
At the end of FY 2010 on June 30, the State of Illinois still owed the University $279 million — about 40 percent of what was appropriated in the 2010 budget, said University Vice President, Chief Financial Officer and Comptroller Walter Knorr. As of Thursday, the University had received $9 million of the $41 million billed to the state for FY 2011. With the shortness of state funding, the University has had to increasingly rely on incoming tuition. In FY 2010, tuition revenue surpass the state’s general fund revenue for the first time.
In FY 2011, Knorr said incoming tuition should bring in $826 million, while appropriated state funds will bring in $679 million.
Regular agenda items that will affect the Urbana campus included the approval of a $9 increase in the refundable Sustainable Environmental Campus Fee — from $5 to $14 — and recommendations to modify the campus’ Student Legal Services, or SLS, plan. One of these recommendations asked the campus to make the SLS attorneys employees of the University rather than attorneys under contract from year-to-year, as the “Student Legal Services Plan” — unchanged since 1978 — requires.
The board’s action also recommended that funding for SLS “be converted as soon as practicable to a non-refundable student services fee,” as it is at the Chicago campus.
In June, Director of SLS Thomas Betz said he thinks the $12 Student Organization Resource Fund (SORF) fee, which SLS shares with the Tenant Union and of registered student organizations, should not be refundable.
Although it may be tempting to refund this fee for other expenses early in the semester, Betz, who has been an attorney for SLS since 1985, warned that this small price tag could help avoid legal fees.
“I have had students that are facing eviction from their housing and have a perfectly valid defense, and there’s nothing I can do if they’ve got that refund,” he said. “If they’re facing a traffic citation that I could easily keep off their record, I can’t even talk to them.”
Last year, students refunded over 9,000 of these fees — more than the amount refunded in the past four years, including summers, according to statistics from the SLS office.
Urbana Student Trustee Dan Soso, who participated in his first trustees meeting since being elected in March, said he agrees with both of the action’s recommendations.
“I would not tell SORF how to spend their money, but if making the fee nonrefundable saves Student Legal Services it may be worth it,” he said outside the meeting.
Other items that were approved include the appointment of Professor Janet Slater to be the Interim Dean of the College of Media on a 12-month service basis and an additional $35,000 administrative increment and a new Master of Arts degree in Religion. A strategic plan for the next phase of the Ikenberry Commons construction was approved later by roll call vote.
When the board asked for public comments toward the end of the meeting, Amy Allen, sophomore in Engineering and former Illini Media employee, spoke on behalf of the Urbana campus’ Students for Environmental Concerns and their desire to shut down the Abbott Power Plant, 1117 S. Oak St. in Champaign, in order to reduce pollution and save money.
“We ask the University to set a 2013 target to shut down the coal plant,” she said. “This will establish the University as a national leader in sustainability, and represent a fiscally wise decision during these difficult economic times.”
The next Board of Trustees meeting is set for Sept. 23 in Urbana.