Southern Illinois University

Southern Illinois University Trustees will meet in special session Monday to vote on a separation agreement for System President Randy Dunn.

The agreement spells out that Dunn's employment as President ends July 30th - but that he will be on leave starting July 17th. He'll receive a six-month severance equaling $215,000, and will then be assigned as a visiting professor on the system's Edwardsville campus starting in the Spring of 2019.

Legislation that would separate SIU Carbondale and SIU Edwardsville has passed out of a House Committee.

Rep. Jay Hoffman's (D-Swansea) bill would create a separate board for SIUC and SIUE, and it would have the School of Medicine be a part of Edwardsville's structure. Hoffman says his proposal would boost both campuses.

"I have no desire at all to hurt the Carbondale campus. I really believe that if each campus were to have its own board like the rest of the university systems do, that we - and you - could focus on the strengths."

Southern Illinois University trustees are discussing what to do about the cash crunch on the Carbondale campus.

President Randy Dunn proposed $30 million in cuts to SIUC and borrowing from SIU Edwardsville. He says the state’s budget crisis is hurting the Carbondale campus, but also has problems of its own.

“They’ve also been living for many years with a structural deficit that hasn’t been corrected," he says. "In the most simplistic way possible, describing it as having too many programs for now too few students.”

A new poll from Southern Illinois University's Paul Simon Public Policy Institute had surprising results for environmentalists. 

The institute surveyed one thousand registered voters earlier this month, and 64% said they prioritized the environment as an issue.  In contrast, 27% said economic growth should come first.   The results took Illinois Environmental Council Director Jennifer Walling by surprise. 

"I have not seen a poll that so strongly prioritized environmental protection, so that is very interesting," she said. 

It's a mixed bag of news about enrollment from state schools in Illinois this week.

Northern Illinois University President Doug Baker says enrollment is down 5.5%, putting the school at 19,015 students university-wide. Baker tells the campus community that the largest decline is in the freshman class. Numbers from NIU show there are 457 fewer freshman compared to last year; that's a drop of 20.2%. Smaller declines took place among transfer and graduate students. 

University of Illinois police say two more large swastikas have been discovered drawn in campus buildings.

Police say the new swastikas were found by a campus employee on Sunday in an elevator and a wall in the Armory indoor track and field center.

Three other similar swastikas were found in campus buildings on Thursday. The 2-foot-tall symbols were drawn with markers.

Police spokesman Patrick Wade said Monday that like in the earlier incident, investigators have made no arrests and do not yet have any suspects.

VICE News published an investigation of American universities with ties to the military, police, and intelligence communities.

Southern Illinois University in Carbondale ranked number 23, due to the number of alums who work in “top secret” jobs. The amount of funding SIU receives from national security and defense agencies was another factor.