URBANA, Ill. ― University Of Illinois trustees plan to begin the process of firing Chancellor Phyllis Wise rather than accept her resignation and pay her a $400,000 bonus she had negotiated. President Timothy Killeen instead plans to assign her to an advisory position reporting directly to him.
Killeen and university trustees announced those moves after a lengthy closed-door meeting of a trustees committee Wednesday, nearly a week after Wise said she planned to resign as the top official at the Urbana-Champaign campus.
The action followed calls by Gov. Bruce Rauner and others to reject the bonus in the aftermath of the school’s announcement last week that she and other administrators had used their private email accounts to avoid public scrutiny of their communications on university business.
“I think this is a time to turn a page at the university,” Killeen said after the meeting. “Practices of the past are not going to be the practices of the future.”
Killeen said that, with students coming back this month for fall classes, he hoped the decisions made Wednesday would help quiet what has been a series of storms on campus this year. They range from the ongoing lawsuit by a professor whose job offer was rescinded over a series of anti-Israel Twitter messages to allegations of mistreatment by some former athletes and two related lawsuits.
“It’s important to put some things in a rear view mirror and in a very speedy way,” the first-year president said.
But he also acknowledged the move could bring more litigation.
