Allegations that a University of Illinois administrator anonymously sent e-mails last month to a faculty governing group seeking to sway the group’s deliberations on a contentious issue are being decried by some faculty as an attack on shared governance at the institution.
On Friday, the university’s president, Michael J. Hogan, announced that Lisa Troyer had stepped down as his chief of staff. Her resignation came as the university had been investigating the origin of two anonymous e-mails, the first of which was sent on December 12 and appeared to have come from Ms. Troyer’s computer.
The University Senates Conference, a faculty group comprised of representatives from the faculty senates of the three University of Illinois campuses, had been debating its final report on the university’s proposal to centralize some enrollment and admissions operations. A main disagreement was over whether these efforts at centralization, such as creating a systemwide Common Application, would impede individual campuses’ autonomy and identities.
The 20-member Senates Conference was tasked in December with reconciling the three faculty senates’ views. The anonymous e-mails urged the group to admit that members were unable to reach a consensus and were clearly “stirring the pots of division,” said Nicholas C. Burbules, a professor who is vice chair of the Senates Conference and received the e-mails along with his colleagues on the panel. Mr. Burbules said that the e-mails “were clearly written by someone who knew a lot about the internal disputes with the committee.”
Thomas P. Hardy, the university’s executive director for university relations, said Monday that the investigation was continuing and that President Hogan had no knowledge of the anonymous e-mails until the university was alerted to them on December 12 or 13.
Several faculty members said Monday that the incident strikes a blow to a constructive relationship between faculty leaders and administrators that has already been frayed as Mr. Hogan moves forward with plans to centralize some university operations.
“The idea that someone would be secretly trying to manipulate discussions is a major violation of the spirit of shared governance,” said Mr. Burbules, a professor of educational policy. “It’s an attempt to interfere in faculty governance in a way I’ve never seen at our university before.”
Donald A. Chambers, chair of the University Senates Conference, said that while administrators must have the authority to manage the institution and make final decisions, the faculty governing bodies play an important, statutorily required, consultative role in decision-making.
“We’re not an advice and consent group. We’re an advisory group,” said Mr. Chambers, a professor of physiology and biophysics at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He added that any interference in that advisory process, if proven, would be “a terrible thing” for shared governance.
On Monday, the Campus Faculty Association at the Urbana-Champaign campus, an independent group of about 260 faculty members, called for a complete halt to the university’s enrollment-management plan, saying that the e-mails were further evidence that the proposal was “a rush job from the president’s office” with insufficient faculty input.
Harriet Murav, a professor of Slavic languages and literature who is president of the Campus Faculty Association, also took issue with the structure of shared governance at the university.
“Faculty senates need to have binding power,” she said. “The faculty voice has to be one that the administration respects.”
Mr. Hardy, the university spokesman, rebuffed the notion that the central administration does not value faculty input.
“Communication and consultation happens on a very regular basis, and it’s a valued part of the relationship between senior administrators and faculty,” he said.
