I am fascinated by the ongoing story offering tantalizing hints that the University of Illinois President Michael Hogan’s chief of staff was operating as a kind of stealthy hatchet woman for the administration (“U. of I. investigating whether president’s chief of staff was behind anonymous emails“). “I am concerned that this could bespeak a major problem in the ethical dimensions of the university,” the piece quotes Senates Conference Chair Donald Chambers, “and we find that very troubling…” No doubt.
The president is new to the job and he brought with him his Chief of Staff, Lisa Troyer, who cost the taxpayers a little more than $200,000 a year. (The former president, apparently, had a budget entourage and no need of a chief of staff.) Ironically, email sent from Ms. Troyer’s computer emphasized the importance of “”integrity and transparency” in disputes over university policy. I hope that the news media does its job; we need to know if this has been Hogan’s Modus Operandi in former positions.
