Embattled President of Chicago State U. Steps Down

Elnora D. Daniel, president of Chicago State University, will step down, the Chicago Tribune reported today. The university’s board did not renew her contract.

Ms. Daniel’s 10-year reign at Chicago State was rife with controversy, especially related to her spending. She was criticized by the auditor general of Illinois for spending some of her travel allowance on Mediterranean and Caribbean cruises that offered minority professionals a chance to mingle at sea — money she eventually had to repay. She once said that her $75,000 annual housing allowance was “chump change.”

The Tribune had also investigated her relationships with student lenders and her purchase of two copy machines for $250,000 from a company owned by a full-time employee of the university. Those purchases, made from a multimillion-dollar grant from the U.S. Agency for International Development for a project to print textbooks for schoolchildren in Ghana, have led the agency to audit the program.

In an e-mail message to the university, which was forwarded to the Tribune, Ms. Daniel said that she was leaving the university “with both sadness and a great deal of pride” and that although she didn’t want to go, “all good things must inevitably come to an end.” —Scott Carlson