University of Illinois President B. Joseph White resigned on Sept. 23 following reports that the school admitted politically connected applicants over more qualified ones at its Urbana-Champaign campus. White said he sent a resignation letter to Christopher Kennedy, the chairman of the university’s Board of Trustees.

“I take this action to enable you as a newly constituted board to select university

leadership going forward,” White wrote in the letter.  “It has been a privilege for my wife, Mary, and me to serve the university community.  We remain highly committed to the University of Illinois.”

According to a university news release, White will remain with the central Illinois school to teach and raise funds. His resignation is effective Dec. 31.

News reports first surfaced in May that politically connected applicants for spots at the university’s flagship campus in Urbana-Champaign were given special attention and tracked through a list known as Category I. Those reports and documents later released by the university showed that some of those connected applicants were admitted over more qualified ones.

Among the e-mails was one from former Gov. Rod Blagojevich backing an applicant. White forwarded the e-mail to Urbana-Champaign Chancellor Richard Herman. That applicant, initially denied admission but later accepted, turned out to be a relative of Tony Rezko, the convicted political influence peddler who is a key figure in the federal government’s investigation of Blagojevich.

White has said he didn’t know at the time who Rezko was when he sent along the e-mail in 2005. Six members of the university’s Board of Trustees were also replaced this summer over the scandal.

Gov. Pat Quinn, who on Sept. 23 said he expected White to resign, said he didn’t ask for White’s resignation.

“This is totally voluntary,” Quinn said. “It’s time for our university to continue to move on.” Kennedy, who was only appointed to the board after the summer resignations, said White’s decision makes the job of finding a quality replacement easier. “If we had a fight on our hands which involved lots of different constituents with sort of diametrically opposed views, it wouldn’t have made it a very attractive place to work,” Kennedy said.

Two weeks ago, the university’s faculty senate said White and Herman should be replaced because of their roles in the admissions troubles, while White had previously indicated he hoped to keep his job. Herman did not return calls or e-mails from The Associated Press seeking comment. Neither did the Faculty Senate chair, assistant

Spanish professor Joyce Tolliver.

White had told a special commission appointed by Quinn to examine university admissions that, when he came to Illinois from the University of Michigan in 2005, he found a culture of political influence where who you know matters far more than what you know.

“I don’t know how to describe it,” White said. “It’s an influence environment; it’s a quid pro quo environment.”

Former President Stanley Ikenberry, who was president from 1979 through 1995, said on Sept. 23 that he’s been asked by two trustees if he was willing to serve as interim university president.

“I think anybody who loves the University of Illinois and was asked to help, they would want to help,” Ikenberry said.  He said he has no interest in being considered for the permanent job.

Kennedy said the school hopes to have a permanent successor by next fall. One of the two trustees who refused Quinn’s calls for resignation for trustees to resign said on Sept. 23 that White’s decision to resign was “very generous.”

“I think that the fact of the resignation is a resolution of a problem that we have as a Board of Trustees in terms of responsibility to the admissions situation,” said James Montgomery, a Chicago lawyer who said White called him Tuesday to tell him he would step down. He described White as “an excellent administrator and president.”

A former trustee who heeded Quinn’s call for resignation said White should have resigned long ago, though not for the admissions situation.

“If his only weakness or indiscretion was the admissions problem, which I think was tremendously overblown; it alone was not an adequate reason to change the leadership of the university,” said David Dorris, a lawyer from LeRoy in central Illinois. Dorris has criticized White for, among other things, the failure of Global Campus to draw students. White pushed the online university as a revenue generator when it opened in 2007, to draw students.

“I think he made a strong attempt to try to weather this,” Dorris said, guessing that one thing changed White’s mind. “Probably the Faculty Senate’s unwillingness to yield and just sweep it under the rug.” Dorris hopes Herman stays on, but doubts he’ll be able to, given his role in the admissions problems.

University e-mails showed Herman bargained with the law school dean over well-connected students, offering scholarships in return for admissions. White will forgo a $475,000 retention bonus he was due under his contract because of the financial situation facing the university, according to the university’s news release.

White replaced James Stukel as university president in January 2005 after serving as dean of the business school at the University of Michigan and, previously, as an associate professor.