University of Illinois kills plans for $98,000 presidential sculpture

There may be some hope for college administrators after all, at least after the local newspaper takes them to task for their incredibly poor spending decisions.

Such is the case at the University of Illinois where the board of trustees voted to honor its current president by sponsoring a $98,000 sculpture of him. This comes, of course, at a time of national recession and calls for severe cuts in education spending. The U of I trustees, like many trustees around the country, seem to be so out of touch that they have no idea how this would play out there among the masses who have to struggle to pay the high tuition rates that the trustees set for them.

They could have funded at least three major scholarships with this money, but they always seem to find an extra hundred grand floating around somewhere when they need to build a sculpture or two.

The president who was to be honored, Stanley Ikenberry, is actually the current interim president and served as president once before. What happened to the president before him? Oh yes, he was a victim of U of I's disgraceful process of providing a separate admissions process for the rich and powerful, allowing them to fast track through the system that the "small people"( as BP calls them,) had to deal with.

Ikenberry gets points for actually calling the whole thing off. Good for him! And thanks to the Tribune for looking into this!

But the U o f I trustees, already burned for their underhanded behavior with the secret admissions fast track still doesn't get it. They had to be scolded by the Chicago Tribune, which began looking into the statue issue and was asking some embarrassing questions about the no-bid contract to build it. You can read the latest Tribune article with links to its previous coverage here: U of I backs off plan for $100,000 sculpture for Ikenberry.

The problems with these kinds of boards of trustees is that they are made up of robber barons and captains of industry who often ridicule the "small people" and like to wheel and deal with their fellow captains of the universe. Think of BP's response after its colossal boo boo. You would think they would hire someone to explain to them how it looks to the real people when they do stuff like this before the newspaper takes them to task.

Why not put parents on the board? What a difference that would make! Someone to remind them where all that money that they spend so lavishly actually comes from?