New U of I chancellor familiar with funding woes

URBANA, Ill. — The woman taking over the top position at the University of Illinois’ flagship campus said Tuesday that she’s all too familiar with the type of funding crisis that the school has endured during the past few years.

Newly named Chancellor Phyllis Wise said her time as provost and interim president at the University of Washington included deep cuts in state funding: more than 30 percent in back-to-back years. State government in Washington, like in Illinois, is struggling with a multibillion-dollar budget deficit.

“All institutions of higher education, but particularly public universities, face a challenge of decreasing support from the state,” Wise said during a news conference at the Urbana-Champaign campus. She said state money is a key funding source that “gives us the ability to hire and maintain the very best faculty.”

The university announced last week that Wise would be its new chancellor starting Oct. 1, pending a vote by the board of trustees that’s expected to be little more than a formality.

She will take over a campus with about 43,000 graduate and undergraduate students, a research budget of more than $500 million and an operating budget that, despite dwindling state support, during the last year school year was $4.7 billion.

The state provided just 17 percent of that money, and is more than $300 million behind in giving the university the money it has promised.

But Wise comes to Illinois more than a year into an austerity program led by interim Chancellor Robert Easter that was designed to cut costs and focus the university on what it did best while letting other areas go. The university this summer decided to shut down its aviation program, for instance.

Easter received a standing ovation from more than a hundred faculty and administrators gathered at the news conference for Wise, but those who heard Wise deliver a brief speech said they’re excited and optimistic as she begins her job.

“Illinois’ in better shape than it was a year ago,” said Jeff Brawn, who heads the university’s Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences. “A year ago I was really pessimistic.”

Brawn also appreciates Wise’s background: She is a professor of physiology and biophysics, biology, and obstetrics and gynecology who has maintained her research while working as an administrator at Washington.

“I think administrators that keep their foot in research understand things better,” he said.

Easter became interim chancellor after previous Chancellor Richard Herman resigned in 2009, during a scandal of the admission of politically connected students.

Wise became provost at Washington in 2005, and was interim president during the last school year, though she said early on that she didn’t want the permanent job.

She said that in Illinois, among the first decisions she’ll have a role in will be selecting a new athletic director to replace Ron Guenther. He retired this summer.

Wise said she expects to work closely with University of Illinois President Michael Hogan, who runs the three-campus university system, in working to get as much funding from the state as possible.

“These two will soon become fast friends of yours,” Hogan, pointing toward state Sen. Mike Frerichs and state Rep. Chad Hays, joked with Wise as he introduced her.

Wise drew praise for her handling of tough economic times at Washington — though she noted Tuesday that the university resorted to steep tuition increases, as high as 20 percent in a single year — to help make up for what the state wasn’t providing.

Washington also has recruited more out-of-state students, cutting spots available to in-state students in the process, because they pay higher tuition. She said it was something the school had to do.

Illinois increased its percentage of international students during Herman’s tenure, something that drew criticism from parents and others who believed students from the state were being deprived of a chance to attend the school.

One of the few areas where she drew open criticism at the Seattle university was her position as paid board member for Nike. Some faculty and the university chapter of the American Association of University Professors called on her to resign from that position, saying she was profiting from a position she likely held only because of her university job.

On Tuesday, Wise said she donates most of the money she’s paid by Nike, and said Hogan has told her he supports her board membership.

Asked on Tuesday about the Category I admissions scandal that cost Herman and former university President B. Joseph White their jobs, Wise said she believes the issue is behind the university.