Trustees close chancellor’s office, skip official review process

Last spring, in an action that has drawn criticism from current and former student leaders, the IU Board of Trustees closed the office of University Chancellor Ken Gros Louis, a senior administrator whose primary role was working with student leaders.

Members of the board said the decision was made because Gros Louis’ initial five-year appointment as chancellor, a position he occupied without pay, was set to expire.

However, Gros Louis’ occupation of the University chancellor’s office would be reviewed and considered for renewal after five years, the letter of appointment signed by then-IU President Adam Herbert said in 2006.

“The president and the Board of Trustees will review the role of the University chancellor in five years,” the letter said. “Your assessment of the effectiveness of the position and your willingness to continue to serve will be critical elements in this  review.”

No such review was conducted, Gros Louis said, and there was also no official record of the trustees conducting an evaluation or discussing the closure of the office.

Bill Cast, chair of the Board of Trustees, said an informal review was undertaken, and he spoke with some of the other trustees and “chatted briefly” with IU President Michael McRobbie.

Mark Land, associate vice president for University communications, said McRobbie’s office was not involved in the decision to close the chancellor’s office and it was entirely a trustee issue.

According to the minutes of the board’s meetings, the only official action it took was to change Gros Louis’ title and end financial support of the office in the June 24 meeting. In the April 15 meeting, Cast briefly said, “The designation of professor Kenneth Gros Louis to the post of University Chancellor Emeritus.”

Robin Gress, secretary of the board, said it is common to conduct personnel business when not in public session, which state law permits to protect public employees’ privacy.

“It was treated as the University routinely treats personnel items,” Gress said. “There was nothing extraordinary about this.”

Gros Louis received a letter from Cast in March detailing the change in his role in the University. The letter explained the office would close June 30 and his title would be changed to University chancellor emeritus.

The letter said the office would be closed due to “pressures on budgets and the ever-present need for office space.” It also said, “A number of the matters previously focused on by you and your staff are now being handled by others.”

Gros Louis said the trustees were largely unaware of the day-to-day workings of his office and that because they did not conduct a review, they had no way of knowing the specific work he was doing, let alone where it overlapped with other offices on campus.
Gros Louis had been working without a salary since his appointment to the position in 2006. His office employed a secretary and an assistant whose combined annual salaries totaled $108,644 when the office closed, according to University records.
The University chancellor’s office also had a budget for as-needed expenses that Gros Louis said he rarely used.

Most of his expenses came from his own pocket or an account that was set up for him at the IU Foundation. These included meetings with student leaders during meals, travel in his role representing IU and some office expenses.

Some student supporters, including former IU Student Association Speaker of Congress Steve Ross, said the University shouldn’t have cut these expenses from the budget in the same year McRobbie received a pay increase.

As for the office space, Gros Louis occupied the office of former University Chancellor Herman B Wells in Owen Hall.

As part of the trustees’ plan, Owen Hall and other administrative buildings are slated to be repurposed to create more student interaction.

It is likely Owen Hall will become the new home of the College of Arts and Sciences administration, said Andy Bolling, facilities space programmer. He said Wells’ old office will not be renovated and will likely be a multipurpose room for the University. Cast also said this is the University’s plan for Owen Hall.

Because he was not a part of any review conducted by the trustees or the president, Gros Louis wrote his own report detailing his office’s work, which was addressed to the board and McRobbie.

The report said Gros Louis’ primary responsibilities were cultivating student leaders, teaching and representing the University on committees and at events.

“I truly enjoy serving IU, and I cannot imagine a life without it,” Gros Louis said in the report. “I was honored when the Trustees named me University chancellor, and I feel the same way today.”

After receiving Cast’s letter in March, Gros Louis told some faculty members and current and former student leaders about the change in his office.

As the news started to spread through the leadership of IUSA, Union Board and other organizations, many people wrote letters to the board and McRobbie expressing their displeasure with the trustees’ action.

Last year’s IUSA President Michael Coleman was among those to write to the board.
“He can connect to so many student leaders,” Coleman said. “He was always just helpful whenever we needed.”

Coleman also expressed concern the University would lose institutional memory if Gros Louis didn’t have a permanent position on campus.

Although Gros Louis encouraged him not to write to the board, IUSA President Justin Kingsolver said he felt the trustees ignored the needs of students by closing the University chancellor’s office.

“As often happens, student-focused programs is where they cut,” Kingsolver said. “He was somebody they thought would be a cut they wouldn’t feel.”

Ross said student leaders would take the brunt force of losing Gros Louis as chancellor because he would have fewer resources available to him as chancellor emeritus.

“The single most important thing he does is guide student leaders,” Ross said.
Kingsolver also said the University would lose sight of some of its history.

“Our University is starting to get away from some of the traditions of the past half century,” he said. “The trustees should not have made the decision unilaterally without giving him due process.”

Cast said the trustees do not foresee losing anything vital by closing the office.
“I see no loss unless he chooses not to work,” Cast said.

The trustees told Gros Louis they hoped he would continue to work for the University as he has this semester.

Although the University no longer supports him in Owen Hall, Gros Louis has moved to a small office on the third floor of Woodburn Hall. The old office was a large room in that housed artifacts owned by Wells, including a collection of his books and gifts he was given by dignitaries, as well as the globe he posed with in his famous portrait.
Comparatively, the new office is a small one in a hallway of international studies and political science faculty offices.

He still uses it to interact with student leaders and to recruit donors for the University in the role of University chancellor emeritus.

“We thought that emeritus was an honor,” Cast said.

Gros Louis’ supporters who wrote letters didn’t necessarily see it the same way.
“Disrespectful would be an understatement in my opinion,” Ross said. “He does so much for the University and for the trustees, who basically are the University, to treat him like this is reprehensible.”