Remarks, May 20, 2021 Meeting of the Board of Trustees
As prepared for delivery by President Tim Killeen
This month, our universities hosted their biggest celebrations of the year, celebrations that reflect the very heart of who we are and why we’re here. The spring commencements were a step back toward the pre-pandemic ceremonies of our mind’s eye, giving every graduate the opportunity for a stage crossing while proud family or friends watched on. Coupled with the virtual ceremonies that our universities created on video, it shined a much-deserved spotlight on our May graduates and I am so grateful to everyone for the hard work and creativity that made it happen.
It was another busy commencement season across our campuses. Once review by colleges and departments is complete, we expect a final tally of up to 16,000 degrees awarded this month, system-wide. Combined with degrees awarded last summer and fall, that would push us past our record of 23,000 degrees awarded set just last year. Think about that. During a global pandemic that threw epic challenges our way, we could award the most degrees in our history on top of the enrollment record we set last fall despite COVID and its fallout. It is the result of remarkable work by everyone across the system, and I am so grateful to our leadership, faculty and staff, students and alumni, donors and friends.
On top of degrees and enrollment, there are some other numbers that we can all be proud of: 0.23, 0.10 and 0.04. In order, those were the 7-day positivity rates for COVID when the spring semester ended last week at Springfield, Chicago and Urbana-Champaign. The credit goes to the covidSHIELD testing pioneered at UIUC, to the rollout of vaccines that include two clinically tested at UIC, and to the cooperation and sacrifice of all of our many stakeholders. It has allowed our university to not just endure as peers struggled but to flourish.
And we are sharing our protocol widely to help others succeed. I reported in March that a million covidSHIELD tests were being provided across all 12 of Illinois’ public universities, including ours, through $20 million in funding authorized by Governor Pritzker. The state expanded that effort in April, announcing it will fund tests at Illinois’ 49 community colleges for their students or for any Illinois resident who wants one. It expanded again just last week, when the Illinois Department of Public Health announced a $225 million investment to provide free or low costs tests for middle and high school students across the state. Altogether, covidSHIELD is now being used at more than 100 sites around the state, from K-12 schools to the state Senate, and is in use nationwide in New Zealand, and at universities, communities and businesses across the U.S.
As this academic year unlike any in memory ends as such a remarkable success, I am grateful to everyone who led the way:
The board; our chancellors, provosts and vice chancellors; our dedicated medical professionals at UI Health; the brilliant UIUC faculty who pioneered SHIELD; system leadership and staff who spent months earning emergency use authorization from the FDA; and the newly created SHIELD Illinois and Shield T3 teams that are now spreading our testing protocol around the world.
My deepest thanks to you all.
Finally, the thousands of students who graduated from our three universities this month aren’t the only ones headed off to their dreams.
On today’s agenda, you will consider a resolution honoring a cherished colleague who is moving on to hers after more than two decades of distinguished service to the U of I System. As you all know, Barb Wilson was named in April as the 22nd president of the University of Iowa and takes office July 15. It is an opportunity of a lifetime for Barb and one where she is sure to excel. We have all seen her talents and leadership first-hand, day in and day out, as she has defined the newly created role she stepped into nearly five years ago as the U of I System’s inaugural executive vice president and vice president for academic affairs. As the system’s first officially designated second-in-command, Barb has been instrumental in our ongoing growth and success, including efforts that have held down tuition, increased institutional financial aid and pushed system-wide enrollment over 90,000 students for the first time last fall. She also led a host of important initiatives including one that added two dozen nationally recognized faculty members, another that established policies to promote safe and welcoming campus and one that provided a long-overdue update of university statutes. Plus, for well over a year now, Barb has been at the center of efforts that have maintained our world-class teaching and research despite the historic challenges of a global pandemic. She has brought that same passion and exemplary work to positions of ever-increasing responsibility since joining Urbana’s faculty in 2000. That includes serving as dean of the College and Liberal Arts and Sciences, Urbana’s largest college, and over a year as interim chancellor of UIUC, our state’s largest university.
As much as her many achievements, we will remember her unique talents. Her intellect and keen insight are blended with passion and compassion, with an innate sense of integrity and fairness, with a spirit of collaboration and teamwork, with communication and problem-solving skills that allow her relate even the most complex concepts in clear, easy-to-digest terms, and with an easy, friendly way that makes her relatable to all. She exemplifies the values that have made the U of I System a true global leader in higher education and embodies the qualities that we hope every graduate carries with them throughout their lives. Since the earliest days of my presidency, Barb has been a treasured colleague, trusted advisor and a close friend. I am so grateful for everything she has done and so proud that she is becoming a president herself, our third in just the last year, joining former Vice President Ed Seidel, now president at Wyoming, and UIC Provost Susan Poser, who will become Hofstra’s president in August. I know all of you and her countless friends across the system join me in wishing the very best for Barb; her husband, UIUC communications professor John Lammers; and their daughters as they begin this exciting new chapter in their lives.
On today’s agenda, you also will consider a recommendation to approve Avijit Ghosh as interim EVP/VPAA, where he would serve during a national search for a permanent successor to Barb. Another recommendation would appoint Paul Ellinger to Avijit’s current role as vice president and chief financial officer, on an interim basis. I am grateful to both of them for stepping up and sharing their many talents.
Avijit, as you all well know, has served as vice president and CEO since 2018, his latest leadership role over the two decades since he first joined us as dean of what is now the Gies College of Business at UIUC. His wide-angle view of system operations also includes service as vice president for technology and economic development and as head of our hospital in Chicago.
Paul would move over from his current role as UIUC’s chief financial officer. He joined the UIUC faculty in 1995, specializing in finance and accountancy in the College of ACES. Prior to joining the Office of the Provost in 2016, he was head of the Department of Agricultural and Consumer Economics. He is also a three-degree graduate of UIUC, earning a doctorate in finance, a master’s degree in agricultural economics and a bachelor’s degree in agricultural mechanization.
Along with Jay Walsh and new Vice President of External Relations and Communications Adrienne Nazon, they will give us a leadership team with the talent, experience and passion to continue the U of I System’s remarkable rise.
Thank you, Chair Edwards, and my thanks to the board for your service to this great university system.