Key dates in the U. of Ill. admissions scandal

[August 07, 2009]  (AP)  Events leading up to Thursday's report from the Illinois Admissions Review Commission:

• May 29, 2009: The Chicago Tribune reports that the University of Illinois maintains a list of politically connected applicants at the Urbana-Champaign campus, and that some members of the so-called Category I list have been admitted in spite of lackluster qualifications. The list in 2005 included a relative of convicted influence peddler Tony Rezko who was backed by then-Gov. Rod Blagojevich and admitted.

• June 1: University suspends Category I list.

• June 7: State Rep. Mike Boland, chairman of the House Higher Education Committee, calls for university President B. Joseph White and some trustees to resign.

• June 10: Gov. Pat Quinn creates the Illinois Admissions Review Commission to examine the university and appoints former federal judge Abner Mikva to lead the panel.

• June 18: Federal prosecutors are investigating possible contacts between Blagojevich and his political allies involving admissions at the U of I, Northern Illinois University and Southern Illinois University.

• July 6: University Chancellor Richard Herman tells the commission that he pushed for politically connected applicants but felt he couldn't refuse demands from trustees, particularly Lawrence Eppley, who often passed along candidates favored by Blagojevich.

• July 8: Former law school dean Heidi Hurd tells the commission that she agreed to admit well-connected applicants pushed by Herman in exchange for scholarship money.

• July 20: Commission chairman Mikva says he will focus on university trustees rather than state lawmakers, who made the vast majority of inquiries on the Category I list.

• July 21: Trustees chairman Niranjan Shah tells the commission he never pushed to admit relatives or was pressured by public officials to support applicants. E-mails released by the university indicated Shah sent lists of applicants to Herman with a request for help.

• July 27: University President White tells the commission that he found an environment in which who you know matters when he came to the university in 2005. Past presidents Stanley Ikenberry and James Stukel, meanwhile, say at least some trustees should be ousted.

• July 28: Trustee Lawrence Eppley resigns.

• July 31: Review commission says it will recommend that university trustees resign.

• Aug. 3: Shah resigns.

• Aug. 6: Review commission issues its final report, which recommends all trustees voluntarily submit their resignations and then let Quinn decide which ones to accept.

[Associated Press]

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