At the beginning of Monday afternoon’s meeting of the Urbana-Champaign Senate, Nicholas Burbules, chair of the executive committee, made an announcement about an issue the Senate has been discussing for more than a year: the Academy for Capitalism and Limited Government Fund.

Chancellor Richard Herman announced prior to the meeting that any further plans relating to the Academy will not be associated with the University. The fund was created in September of 2007 and was marketed as an independent endowment within the University of Illinois Foundation to raise donations to advance research and teaching on free market capitalism and limited government among other topics.

“The campus and the donors for the Academy for Capitalism and Limited Government Fund have agreed to dissolve the agreement with the University of Illinois Foundation,” Burbules said.

He said the faculty’s issue with the academy was not a question of whether capitalism should be discussed on campus, but that a donor group should not be able to determine the specific use of its funds.

“The faculty obviously had a problem with what they thought someone was trying to direct,” said Joe Goldberg, professor of medicine. “I think even down to what was taught at the academy.”

Burbules said this decision resulted from private discussions between Herman and the donor group. Plans for the academy can still continue as a private entity separate from the University.

“I think this is the right outcome reached in the right way,” Burbules said. “It could have went wrong because it is politically charged.”

Burbules also read an announcement from University President B. Joseph White at the beginning of the meeting. The letter was meant to clarify some details of the ethics policy, said Peg Rawles, associate chancellor.

White’s announcement stated that the ethics newsletter sent to faculty a few weeks ago was not an official statement of University policy; instead it was a clarification of a 2003 state law called the State Official and Employee Ethics Act.

Rawles reminded senators that the ethics guidelines come from the President’s office and apply to all three University of Illinois campuses. She also answered questions that came up at the meeting, mainly about how the University defines “the workplace” in relation to when it is appropriate to participate in political expression.

“I’ll follow up by letting the University Ethics division know that there is a pending question about how to define the workplace,” Rawles said.

When the Senate’s formal agenda began, it unanimously reached decisions about renaming several programs of study and approving student and faculty nominations to committees.