A middle school student council meeting. That's how reporter Stacy St. Clair characterizes last week's Board of Trustees meeting at College of DuPage.
St. Clair covered Thursday's meeting for the Chicago Tribune. "There was a lot of eye rolling," she says. "A lot of whispering, then passive aggressive comments and aggressive-aggressive comments." St. Clair added:
"It was not what you wanted to see from a college in crisis."
The meeting was the first for the new chairperson, Katherine Hamilton, a longtime critic of the way Robert Breuder has run the school since he became president in 2009. Much of Thursday's tension involved Hamilton's interaction with board member Erin Birt, who was chairperson when questions emerged about Breuder's expenses. The Tribune also reported that Breuder's administration increased the credit hours awarded to recruits in a law enforcement academy without increasing the amount of instruction. The biggest controversy occurred in January when Trustees approved a $763,000 severance package for Breuder -- prompting the faculty union to issue a vote of no confidence in the president.
In an interview with WNIJ, reporter St. Clair noted the "sweeping" investigations into Breuder's administration:
"The FBI is involved," she says. "We also know the U.S. Department of Education has been asking questions of college employees."
St. Clair adds that investigators are asking for every expense Breuder claimed, as well as all his emails, since 2009. Investigators are also looking at contracts between the college and members of the school's foundation, or non-profit fundraising arm.
"It's so broad that you can't say, `A-Ha,' this is what they're looking at."
Last October, College of DuPage officials told WNIJ that they rejected claims of illegitimate spending in a 508-page report issued by the group American Transparency.
