Does the University of Illinois MBA Program Hate the Troops?
Breaking News: This will be updated in this post as more information comes in. (Hat Tip to Marathon Pundit.
The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) has established an innovative program specifically targetted to Illinois veterans of the War on Terror. Basically, the state and the University will allow them to get a FREE executive MBA from UIUC (in there Chicago office) or attend the MBA program in the Champaign campus by having the state pay for the program with Illinois Veterans Grants (IVG) and the College of Business picking up the rest (about 54% of the total yearly tuition). The program was touted far and wide by Rumsfeld, Congressmen, and the State of Illinois. There were 110 slots for veterans. In the end, according to varying reports, 46 were accepted. The details of the program can still be viewed on the College of Business website.
The architect of the program has left the University and has filed a lawsuit, alleging anti-military bias and discrimination. The University of Illinois system is the same system that employs William Ayers as a distinguished professor of education. That’s the same Bill Ayers that tried to blow up government buildings and infamously quipped that people should kill their parents.
According to Robert Van Der Hooning, the architect of this program, the University (specifically Dean Ghosh) tried to scale back the amount of “jarheads” in the program. He alleges that the criteria for acceptance was changed after the vets were promised slots. That is why only 46 of the 110 slots are currently taken by students. According to anonymous sources, the reason that the number is so low is that the remaining applicants did not meet the criteria for acceptance by the appropriate deadlines. One would assume that a free executive MBA would draw more than 110 applications and that applications denied for cause would not have lead to a high-profile administrator in the College of Business not only leaving the University but filing a lawsuit.
Currently, Dean Ghosh is referring all questions to the University Public Relations office and Lt. Gov. Quinn is unavailable as of this writing to comment further.
According the University spokesperson Robin Kaler, the EMBA program only has a capacity of 60 students. The room will only accomodate that many students and there is only enough faculty to handle one class of those 60 students. The program has cost the College of Business $650,000 and according to Kaler, “all commitments were honored regardless of whether they were authorized or not.”
At present, the facts on hand don’t warrant the kind of article that Marathon Pundit put up (and Pajamas Media linked to). I’m not saying the University is in the right, I’d like to see more information.
Possibility 1: That Ghosh and company did in fact have a problem with too many jarheads in the program. This, after having supported the creation of a program almost exclusively for jarheads.
Possibility 2: Miscommunication about what can and cannot be done with Van Der Hooning over-extending the University.
Possibility 3: Van Der Hooning is engaging in a press push to keep the heat on the University while his lawsuit is working his way through the court of claims in Illinois.
Kaler made some pretty good and fatal points to Van Der Hooning’s claims. One of them is lying, the facts will determine which one.
More facts need to be had before condemning the University, or at least Dean Ghosh, of being on an anti-military crusade. There are more questions to ask, and the downside of blogging, is that people want to rush their stories to the web without doing all the footwork to get the facts straight. Will update with more information when I get it.
(Waiting on calls back from others in the know, will update as I get it).
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