Higher Education

An auditorium with $3 million in renovations is for sale for $100. The Carthage City Council has approved buying the structure from Carl Sandberg College in Galesburg. The college board will vote on the matter this month. The school received the Charger Auditorium in 2008 as a donation from Pairieland Investment Group. It wanted to create a multi-building partnership that fizzled in large part because of the recession. Sandburg president Lori Sundberg says after $3 million in renovations, the school spends up to $35,000 a year to maintain it.

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor will appear at a public event next month at the University of Illinois in Champaign. The university's College of Law says she will conduct a wide-ranging hour-long discussion with Professor Robin B. Kar. The March 7 event is free, but tickets are required. Sotomayor joined the Supreme Court in 2009. She is the country's first Hispanic justice.

University of Illinois President Timothy Killeen says he agrees with some of the concerns about excessive spending at public universities raised by an aide to Governor Bruce Rauner. He was among those to respond last week to the memo from Deputy Chief of Staff Richard Goldberg. Killeen says the university has taken steps to enhance the experience for the student… including an administrative hiring freeze on the administration, and other measure to make sure the U of I is ‘fiscally prudent.’

More than 300 college students and twin city residents took part in a watch party at Illinois State University for President Obama’s State of the Union Address. ISU became the national hub for a live webcast sent out to nearly 500 campuses in the United States. 

Heartland Community College Student Hetal Bhirawani says she is impressed with the younger generation. “We are all interested in politics, and we want to know where we are going, where our future is going, and what the people in authority are doing to secure our future.”

An accreditation agency has put the troubled College of DuPage in suburban Chicago on probation for two years. The school made the Higher Learning Commission's decision public on Wednesday. The school remains accredited, but being on probation means it has two years to address concerns from the commission. If the school doesn't address those concerns, the commission could withdraw accreditation. The school will be evaluated again in 2017. The commission says it found concerns with the college's integrity in its financial, academic, personnel and other functions.

The University of Illinois and professor Steven Salaita have reached a $600,000 settlement, but he will not be teaching at the U of I. Including legal fees, the total will be $875,000, according to his attorneys.  University trustees approved the settlement on an 9-1 vote at their meeting today in Chicago. 

In a press release, the U of I says Salaita will receive the lump sum payment, and the university has also agreed to pay his attorneys for any legal costs he has incurred.  The proposed agreement stipulates that it does not constitute an admission of wrongdoing by the U of I.

Illinois has fired athletic director Mike Thomas as it prepares to release the final report from its investigation into mistreatment of football and women's basketball players. Interim Chancellor Barbara Wilson says the report found no wrongdoing by Thomas. But she says ``a change in leadership was needed in order to move forward.''

Bradley University's new President is a respected legal scholar, attorney, and graduate of the Peoria school. Gary Roberts is currently Dean Emeritus and a law school professor at Indiana University. He is an expert on anti trust and sports law.

Bradley Trustees Chair Dout Stewart says Roberts is a forward thinking, innovative, and proven leader. Roberts replaces Joanne Glasser, who retired earlier this year.

Roberts will take over January first from interim President Stan Liberty.

The next president of Illinois Wesleyan University will be Eric Jensen. Jensen is currently the the Provost of Hamline University in Saint Paul, Minnesota.

Hamline has nearly 5,000 students in its liberal arts, business, and education programs. It also has a law school. Jensen has also taught economics and overseen a policy program at William and Mary, the nation's second oldest University.