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Friday, August 14, 2009 9:57 PM CDT
State Rep. Bill Black wants UI trustee job; would give up seat
CHAMPAIGN (AP) — Veteran Illinois lawmaker Bill Black said Friday he wants to serve on the University of Illinois’ embattled board of trustees and help the school recover from its admissions scandal.
Three trustees have resigned following news reports and a report from a state commission about an admissions list of politically connected applicants, some of whom were admitted in spite of underwhelming qualifications.
Gov. Pat Quinn has asked for the remaining six trustees to resign and the university’s alumni association to draw up a list of prospective replacements. He said he will act “with finality” on the remaining trustees next week. Quinn wouldn’t say Friday what he would do, although he said there was no question he could remove the trustees.
“Well, I’m a patient man but I don’t have infinite patience,” he said after an unrelated bill signing ceremony in Chicago.
Black, a Danville Republican, said he wrote Quinn on Aug. 5 expressing his interest and hopes to contact him personally.
“I’ve sat on the sidelines and I’ve watched and I’ve observed and I’ve listened, and I said, ’Hey, I have a unique set of experiences that I can bring to that university,” he said in an interview Friday.
Quinn won’t say if Black will get a spot on the board.
“He’s a very, very strong supporter of the university,” the governor said of Black.
Black earned a master’s degree from the University of Illinois in 1968, taught in the public schools and worked as an administrator and teacher at Danville Area Community College for 10 years. He also served on the state House Higher Education Committee.
He said he’ll step down from the Illinois House seat he’s held since 1986 if Quinn appoints him to the board.
Black doesn’t believe the university’s reputation has been permanently damaged by the admissions uproar, and doesn’t think it will be difficult to remove political influence from admissions after the heavy news coverage the situation has generated.
A state panel that looked into the influence of politics on admissions recommended, among other things, that a new board of trustees review the involvement of university President B. Joseph White and UIUC campus Chancellor Richard Herman.
Black says he wouldn’t automatically vote to remove either.
“I don’t understand the sudden desire to chop off the heads of U of I administrators,” he said. “Nobody’s demanding that legislators who used the clout system resign.”
I don’t know that any apologized.”
Black says he didn’t intend for his interest to become public but a reporter at The (Champaign) News-Gazette asked him about it.
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