Staff editorial: Other contributions
April 4, 2005
As a stunning basketball season puts almost every aspect of the University in the national spotlight – the Chief Illiniwek issue has been mentioned on ESPN.com several times – our Board of Trustees could be getting a new trustee whose qualifications include attending 95 consecutive Illini games, more than $83,000 in contributions to Gov. Rod Blagojevich and little else.
Blagojevich appointed a new University of Illinois trustee, David V. Dorris, 57, on March 25. Dorris lives in rural LeRoy, Ill., and has a law practice in Bloomington. He graduated from the UI College of Law in 1973. His daughter graduated from the UI in 2000, and his son is finishing his third year there. If confirmed by the Illinois Senate, Dorris will replace trustee Jeff Gindorf, who did not seek reappointment when his term expired in January. Dorris would serve a term ending January 2011.
Nominating Dorris is a politically safe move for Blagojevich because Dorris is a downstate Democrat – downstaters will support a non-Chicagoan, while Blagojevich will be comfortable with a Democrat onboard. Even after Gindorf’s departure, six of the eight remaining nonstudent trustees are from the Chicago area.
It’s disappointing that new board members are determined by politics. Appointees should be primarily concerned with running the University, not with currying favor of upstate or downstate Illinois. Board members should have allegiance to students, not to politicians. Politicians have expiration dates, and universities educate future generations – it’s obvious which is more important in the long term.
The trustee position is unpaid, so some may argue that it does not matter who gets appointed. But it matters to us as students, faculty and staff, whose lives at this University are regulated by the board’s decisions.
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The title “trustee” means we put our trust in him or her to make decisions as to what’s best for the University. Although he was appointed for political reasons, Dorris, like every other trustee, must show that he puts the interests of the University above the interests of himself, Blagojevich and anyone else.
If confirmed by the Senate, Dorris will join a board that has several pressing problems to address. Getting state funding during a seemingly endless budget crisis, addressing this year’s troubling dip in minority enrollment that has left administrators mystified and increasing the University’s painfully low endowment fund should be top priorities. Also, the board has done nothing to help reach the “consensus conclusion” on the Chief issue it called for last summer. It’s hard to believe the board is truly serious about finding a mutually satisfying resolution to the Chief issue when they have ignored the issue for more than six months.
The board needs to be more in touch with student sentiments. For an organization whose main goal is to educate students, student representation on the board is three out of thirteen – only one of whom has a binding vote – and is widely considered a formality. If Dorris is confirmed, he must primarily be concerned with the welfare of University students, staff and faculty, and nothing else.