Illinois Medicine

PRESIDENTIAL AGENDA Hogan focuses on budget challenge, vacant positions university- wide P 26 | SUMMER 2 011 RESIDENT MICHAEL J. HOGAN began formulating his plans to more tightly integrate the University of Illinois cam- puses, as well as the College of Medicine and University of Illinois Medical Center, when he arrived in May 2010 upon leaving his prior post as president of the seven-campus, 30,000-student University of Connecticut. As originally reported in the Summer 2011 issue of Illinois Alumni magazine, Hogan is heavily focused on the challenge the University of Illinois faces with the state still nearly half a billion dollars behind on payments, but he expressed confi- dence that teaching and research will not be adversely affected. "Because we've been very diligent in pursuing cost-saving measures in administrative operations, we've been able to save millions, which has al- lowed us to protect our core academic and research mission, despite cuts and delays in payments," Hogan told Illinois Alumni. "These measures have also enhanced our operations—we're more efficient, and the services we deliver are improving each day." Indeed, the university's Administrative Review and Restructuring initiative has found savings in back-office operations of about $10 million in its first six months, Hogan told the magazine, published by the University of Illinois Alumni Association. "These operations provide infrastructure support in areas like informa- tion technology, human resources, procurement, capital programs, com- munications and advancement," he said. "In many cases, we've identified redundancies across our campuses, with each campus operating its own infrastructure with duplicative overhead costs in these areas. We're focus- ing on removing such unnecessary replication, improving services and saving costs." (For more information, please see www.uillinois.edu/arr.) Hogan also said that he's anxious to start filling faculty and staff vacancies that have occurred during the past few years. "We cannot contemplate increasing our student population without a robust faculty and staff to support them," he said. "We will pursue this strategi- cally, ensuring that our top programs and areas of high demand are receiving the support they need to continue to thrive," Hogan added. "We have hundreds of open positions as our faculty and staff have retired or been recruited to other institutions. They, along with our exceptional students, are our most valuable and precious resource." Prior to leading the University of Connecticut, Hogan served as the execu- tive vice president, provost and F. Wendell Miller Professor of History at the University of Iowa, and in several positions at The Ohio State University, which he joined as a faculty member and rose to chair of the department of history, dean of the College of Humanities and executive dean of the Colleges of the Arts and Sciences. Born and raised in Waterloo, Iowa, Hogan specializes in the history of American diplomacy and has written nine books along with numerous scholarly articles and essays. His publications include A Cross of Iron: Harry S. Truman and the Origins of the National Security State, 1945–1954 (Cambridge Univer- sity Press, 1998) and The Marshall Plan: America, Britain and the Reconstruc- tion of Western Europe, 1947–1952 (Cambridge University Press, 1987). Hogan has won two awards for The Marshall Plan and received the Norman Graebner Lifetime Achievement Award in 2010 from the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations. The Graebner award recognizes a distinguished scholar of diplomatic or international affairs who has shown excellence in scholarship, teaching and/or service to the profession. He is married to Virginia Hogan, and they have four adult children: Christo- pher, David, Joseph and AnnElizabeth. Editor's note: You can keep in touch with President Hogan's observations at "PrezRelease," his daily blog, available at prezrelease.uillinois.edu. PHOTO: LLOYD DEGRANE

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