Imagine recruiting for the soon-to-be-vacant president’s office at Northern Illinois University. It can’t be easy to write that job description right now.
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Wanted: A visionary leader to oversee the state’s third-largest public campus, where two high-ranking administrators recently resigned in disgrace, eight employees face felony theft charges and the campus police chief — once hailed a hero for his swift response to a 2008 shooting spree that left six people dead — has been placed on leave amid questions about concealed evidence in a rape case. Budget currently includes more than $15,000 per week for suspended employees who are still being paid.
Against that backdrop, NIU will seek a replacement for retiring President John Peters and recruit its next freshman class. For the DeKalb-based university that proudly vowed to move forward after the massacre four years ago, 2012 has marked a major step backward.
Ten employees are on paid leave while the university investigates misconduct allegations against them. The state school has paid those staff members more than $45,000 so far — nearly the cost of four students’ tuition bills — not to come to work. And the amount will keep rising as the university considers the allegations and follows state and university employment and disciplinary procedures.
What’s more, the Tribune learned Friday that suspended police Chief Donald Grady had asked the FBI about two months ago to help with the campus police investigation into the two university administrators who had resigned. That investigation — and the FBI’s assistance — is now on hold, NIU acting police Chief Darren Mitchell said.
“If I were looking from the outside, I would think that this is a place that has to get its act together,” said senior Austin Quick, speaker of the student senate. “The problem, just like with any organization, is that we have a few bad apples. Over time, they have been allowed to sit there and fester, and now is the time they are beginning to rot. … Serious questions need to be asked about the leadership of the university.”
Nestled among the cornfields about 65 miles west of Chicago, NIU draws those looking for an affordable college education while either living on the large public campus or commuting to DeKalb. About 94 percent of its 22,000 students are from Illinois, two-thirds from the city and surrounding suburbs.
The university’s academic strengths include business, education and art. It has one of the 10 largest teacher preparation programs in the country, and its art school produces more art teachers than any other school in the state. Unlike the state’s other regional public universities, NIU also has a law school.
It’s those amenities and rankings that will attract the next president and prospective students, despite the recent troubles, NIU officials said.
“There are so many great things going on at NIU right now. I think the good far outweighs the challenges,” said Kathryn Buettner, vice president for university relations.
Confronting problems
In recent months, however, the school has endured a series of scandals that have seemingly overshadowed its brightest spots. There’s been nearly as much news coverage of the administrative turmoil as of the university’s football team, which recently won its third consecutive Mid-American Conference West championship.
None of the scandals has involved NIU’s academic departments, meaning the vast majority of students and faculty have seen no disruption to their daily routines on campus or in their classrooms. But faculty senate President Alan Rosenbaum said he worries that the negative publicity — which many professors consider overblown — could have a detrimental effect on efforts to recruit.
“There are some problems, but the university is confronting them and doing its best to correct them,” Rosenbaum said.
Peters, who last month announced plans to retire after more than 12 years as president, echoed as much in a recent email to the campus. In the note, he acknowledged that he had been largely silent on the problems, particularly the felony charges brought against eight current and one former employee involved in a so-called coffee fund scandal.
Authorities alleged that the employees were involved in a scheme to sell university scrap materials, including those from campus building renovations, and deposit the money in a private, unauthorized bank account known as the “coffee fund.” The slush fund was used to pay for holiday parties, retirement celebrations and other social occasions, officials said.
Though campus police led the investigation and forwarded a 1,200-page case file to prosecutors, NIU administrators were caught off-guard by the criminal charges and the scope of the investigation.
All nine people have pleaded not guilty. The eight current employees have been placed on paid leave pending an internal investigation and possible disciplinary procedures.
The story of the coffee fund investigation broke around the same time that two senior administrators resigned amid separate misconduct investigations. The university paid the two men nearly $80,000 total in July to leave the campus.
One of the employees who resigned was John Gordon, director of the university’s 10,000-seat Convocation Center, which hosts about 200 events a year. Gordon allegedly had a Convocation Center custodian clean his home at least four times during work hours. She cleaned the windows and floors, washed dishes and vacuumed, according to an interview and documents obtained by the Tribune.
His supervisor, Robert Albanese, an associate vice president who had worked at NIU for 25 years, resigned in July as he faced separate allegations of misconduct, according to his resignation agreement. Albanese later was charged in the coffee fund case.
Peters, who announced his own retirement a week before the coffee fund charges, did not publicly address the allegations until the Nov. 9 email sent to NIU students, faculty and alumni.
“For several months, I have had to remain silent as accusations of wrongdoing by NIU employees have been reported in the news. I want to assure you that my silence was not due to lack of concern,” Peters wrote. “Like you, I am deeply distressed by the allegations and am painfully aware of the effect these allegations must have on the employees involved and on their colleagues and families. … I have always been proud of the high ethical standards to which faculty and staff at NIU hold themselves. The allegations do nothing to diminish my confidence in this institution and our NIU community.”
Calling the FBI
Despite promises of a brighter future, Peters suspended Grady — who led the coffee fund investigation — the next morning amid allegations that the department withheld evidence in an investigation of an alleged sexual assault by one of its officers.
Peters said he put Grady on paid leave and banned him indefinitely from the department because the campus “cannot under any circumstances tolerate such clear breaches of contracts, authority and responsibility.”
Grady, who is drawing his salary of about $206,000 during his suspension, is not expected to return to the job.
In late summer, as his officers began investigating Gordon and Albanese and their departments, Grady called the FBI to ask for a forensic accountant to review financial records. A meeting was scheduled, but now the agency’s involvement has been put off following the chief’s suspension, acting Chief Mitchell said.
“As you know, there have been a number of things taking place at the Police Department. As it stands now, it has been postponed because of everything that is taking place,” Mitchell said. The FBI declined comment.
Buettner, of university relations, said NIU administrators first became aware of Grady’s request for FBI involvement after the Tribune asked questions about it Friday afternoon. She said the administration is not privy to campus police investigations and that the call for a forensic audit played no role in the chief’s suspension.
The chief’s exit would mark the departure of one of the campus’s best-known and most controversial figures.
Grady’s reputation reached near-mythical proportions on campus Feb. 14, 2008, when NIU alum Steven Kazmierczak opened fire in a large lecture hall, killing five students and injuring 21 others before killing himself. When the first reports of the shooting came into his office, Grady, a former track star, ran the near-quarter mile from his office to the scene.
Though Kazmierczak already had taken his own life by the time Grady and his officers arrived at Cole Hall, many publicly praised the chief’s swift response and willingness to risk his life by entering the auditorium. They also commended his officers for their first-aid training, which the chief required as part of his crisis preparedness planning.
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But while he garnered national attention for his efforts and crisis plan, some university officials and neighboring law enforcement officers privately grumbled about his prickly personality and his refusal to share information about investigations.
Grady was placed on leave less than two years later — and subsequently reinstated — after a student journalist accused the chief of threatening him.
The latest fallout with Grady stems from a police investigation into an alleged 2011 sexual assault of a student by NIU police Officer Andrew Rifkin.
Rifkin was fired in October 2011 and charged with felony sexual assault a month later. Defense attorneys argued that the case should be dismissed because police had not shared statements from witnesses who said the alleged victim had told them it was consensual sex.
Grady and the NIU lieutenant who failed to turn over the reports described it as an unintentional mistake. The judge presiding over the case called it an egregious act, prompting prosecutors and Peters to request an Illinois State Police investigation of Grady’s department.
The chief’s suspension prompted a show of solidarity from his department, including a group of sergeants who released a statement saying they could “attest to the incontrovertible integrity and commitment of Chief Grady.”
The entire department is now banned from speaking to Grady, and Grady has been banned from entering the Police Department.
‘Tough people’
NIU spokesman Paul Palian acknowledged that the recent events have taken a toll on the campus.
“It is just something that we’re constantly aware of,” he said. “We would much rather be talking about the terrific turnout at our open house or research being done across the globe. … But we are dealing with these things head-on, and we will get through it.”
Longtime board member Marc Strauss said it shouldn’t be surprising that challenges arise in a large institution and the university will attract a top-notch president despite the challenges.
“It is a great institution, and I am confident it will find a great leader,” Strauss said. “We have many people concerned about what is happening, and there are obviously investigations going on. We do the best we can until they are completed and then react to what we are told.”
Todd Latham, president of the university’s Supportive Professional Staff Council, said the negative publicity — along with the state’s serious financial troubles and broken pension system — are a constant concern among NIU employees. He worries that the problems, particularly at the state level, could make the university less attractive to potential president candidates.
“We want to compete on a national level,” he said. “Do we feel the public eye heavily upon us? Yes, we do. We know the general public is looking at us, and they should. As employees, we need to do our best to help attract the best students, faculty and now university president as possible.”
Latham, who has several degrees from NIU, insists there’s little doubt the campus will make it through the bad spot.
“Tough times don’t last,” he said. “Tough people do.”