UofI looks into political pressure on admissions
CHAMPAIGN (AP) – University of Illinois President Joseph White said Friday that the school’s admissions employees should be shielded from political pressure that reportedly opened the doors to an underqualified relative of a key figure in ousted Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s corruption scandal.
But one day after revelations that the university keeps a list of “Category I” applicants of special interest, White defended the file as a commonly used tool to track a small number of inquiries from politicians and others on the university’s flagship campus in Urbana-Champaign.
“To the extent that has happened at the University of Illinois, we will correct it,” he said, adding he will meet with staff and other administrators Monday to start figuring out what to do next.
But the list and news that Illinois admitted a relative of convicted political influence peddler Antoin “Tony” Rezko angered state lawmakers. One said he wants any university trustee involved in trying to influence admissions to resign and another said he would press to end political appointments to public university trustee boards.
“We’ve had 10 years of governors from both parties who I think it would be charitable to say abused their authority [to appoint trustees],” said Rep. Chapin Rose, a Mahomet Republican and Illinois graduate who has introduced a resolution calling on universities to find a way to ensure the governor no longer appoints trustees. “We’ve got to do something to break all of our institutions free of this appointment process.”
The news, first reported Friday by the Chicago Tribune, comes from 1,800 pages of university documents.
Seventy-seven percent of the 800 Category I students since 2005 were accepted, compared to an acceptance rate of 69 percent among other applicants, the Tribune reported. The Urbana campus typically gets 23,000 or more applications, admits about 18,000 of them and eventually enrolls about 7,000 students.
Students accepted from the list in 2008 were ranked lower than all freshmen and had lower ACT scores, according to the Tribune.
The university documents include lists of lawmakers who inquired about applicants and e-mail exchanges among staff and administrators regarding those inquiries. In some it’s clear admission officials are uncomfortable with applicants they believe they’re being pressured to admit.
“I can’t state strongly enough the negative impact this will have on the profile of incoming classes,” Paul Pless, assistant dean of law school admission, wrote in a 2006 e-mail to a superior regarding a Category I student being pushed for admission. “This is now the third candidate we are being forced to admit,” Pless wrote.
The lists of influential people inquiring about student applications include dozens of lawmakers each year. House Speaker Mike Madigan and Sen. James DeLeo each made nine inquiries in 2005, the highest totals recorded that year.
White acknowledged he forwarded Blagojevich’s e-mail a few months after starting his tenure in 2005, but insisted that didn’t mean he recommended the prospective student’s admission.
“I certainly did and would pass along a message that the governor of Illinois is interested in a candidate and would like to see him admitted,” White said. “The people with whom I work know that my passing along a message — whether it’s the governor or (someone else) — does not mean that I think that person should be admitted.”
Rezko, a Blagojevich fundraiser, was convicted of shaking down businesses that wanted to do state work for campaign contributions. Blagojevich was impeached and removed from office in January.
The Category I list typically has more than 100 people each year whose applications legislators and trustees have been asked to check on by constituents, typically parents or other relatives, said Illinois spokesman Thomas Hardy. This year, there are about 160 on the list.
Democratic Rep. Mike Boland of East Moline, chairman of the state House Higher Education Committee, was livid about the revelations.
“This is really outrageous,” he said, adding that he would call for the resignation of any trustee involved in trying to influence admissions.
The university generally does a good job on admissions, but “if there are widespread abuses, we would attempt to rectify the situation,” said State Sen. Edward Maloney, a Chicago Democrat who heads the Senate Higher Education Committee.
Maloney said he has previously inquired about why a student wasn’t admitted.
“I’ve never said ‘put this kid in,’” Maloney said.
White said he is concerned the news could undermine confidence in the admission process, which he defended as rigorous.
“Fortunately, I think there’s a lot of confidence in the University of Illinois,” he said.
Illinois is considered one of the top public universities in the country. U.S. News&World Report this year rated it as the 10th-best public university in the United States.
The university plans to address one shortcoming right away, said Chancellor Richard Herman of the Urbana campus. Forms allowing students to appeal rejections — something the Tribune noted few but the politically connected seemed to know was possible — will be posted on the university Web site, Herman said. That plan was in the works before this week, he said.
The news is also a second blow this month for White, who saw trustees vote last week to remake the university’s online venture, Global Campus, because of low enrollment.
White championed Global Campus as a way to reach new students and make money, but also endorsed the change in direction.
White said he does not doubt his job security.
“Leadership of a major institution is a hard job,” he said. “I’m a strong person and persistent and I have a clear conscience.”
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Associated Press Writer Deanna Bellandi in Springfield contributed to this report.
