After months of unexplained delays, Gov. Pat Quinn last week named four new members to Chicago State University’s board of trustees.
The four new members are Lisa Morrison Butler, who runs City Year Chicago; Gary Rozier, a vice president at Ariel Investments; Julie Samuels, the Openlands Project’s outreach coordinator; and Zaldwaynaka Scott, an attorney and executive inspector general under former Gov. Rod Blagojevich.
But one thing that’s missing, faculty and other observers at CSU say, is an alumni presence.
“It’s kind of sad because not one of them are alumni,” says Donald Pettis, the president of CSU’s alumni board. “They’re not from Chicago State.”
The lack of a faculty or alumni presence on the board is not unusual, says Richard Novak, a senior vice president at the Association of Governing Boards, based in Washington. But that doesn’t mean they should be excluded, either, he says.
“The board can appoint non-board members to be on (its) committees, and it makes great sense for an academic affairs committee to have faculty members on it,” Novak says.
CSU’s board had been operating for most of this year with half its seats empty, and it has been two years since the board had a full complement of members.
The new appointees will join board members Leon Finney, Richard Tolliver, Betsy Hill and student trustee Levon James, who are retaining their seats.
“I hope that it is the beginning of a new chapter,” says Yan Searcy, the president of CSU’s faculty senate. “It appears that there is a nice mix of community and business (experience), in terms of the recent appointees.”
In recent weeks, critics at CSU and in the media have swatted at Quinn for waiting so long to make the appointments. When an admissions scandal rocked the University of Illinois in May, Quinn replaced all but two of its board members by the end of the summer.
But any notion that the delay at CSU was based on race is probably misplaced, says Novak.
“It’s not uncommon for the flagship institution, no matter the issue, whether it’s funding or board appointments … to get more attention than the regional or urban universities,” Novak says. “That’s not uncommon, and that’s just a fact of life in any state.”
Scott, who is a U of I graduate, says she is open to the concerns of people who want to see alumni and faculty given a greater role.
“At this point I’m open to anything that’s going to help turn the situation around,” Scott says.