SHIFTS AT THE TOP Joyce Davis joins the comptroller's office.

Joyce Davis joined Comptroller Daniel Hynes' office as legislative liaison. In a printed statement, Hynes said Davis will "help move our legislative priorities, including passage of a state Rainy Day fund." Davis is a DeKalb native who holds a bachelor's degree in political science from MacMurray College. She had worked for Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan as a communication program specialist, starting in 1994.

Former SIUC chancellor fights dismissal by trustees
Former Southern Illinois University Carbondale Chancellor Jo Ann Argersinger is suing the SIU Board of Trustees, alleging a violation of the Open Meetings Act. The board fired Argersinger after she battled with President Ted Sanders. She was hired 11 months prior to her dismissal and was the third chancellor at the school since 1995.

Sanders told the board of trustees that Argersinger withheld information on major personnel decisions, sided with faculty over the administration and promoted distrust between the Carbondale and Edwardsville campuses.

But the chair of the SIUC graduate council says the board has lost the support of the teachers.

"Of the 1, 015 faculty members, I would estimate less than 1 percent has a kind word for them," says David Kammler, who is also a math professor. "They broke a contract with the faculty. They can't just dismiss someone with- out discussing it with the faculty."

Argersinger was a provost at the University of Maryland Baltimore County. She was hired by SIU after a national search. Along with the chancellor position, she was made a tenured professor of history. She has said she will stay at SIU and has been allowed administrative leave until next January to prepare classes. She will be paid her chancellor's salary plus perks until then. Her husband, Peter Argersinger, also teaches in the history department.

Veteran political scientist John Jackson was named interim chancellor. He worked with Argersinger as vice chancellor and provost but stepped down in mid-May to focus on teaching.

Jackson said a nationwide search for a new chancellor will be conducted.

38 July/August 1999 Illinois Issues

Sandburg's early work shows the poet s radical side.

Newly published Sandburg poems reveal an angry young man

A newly discovered collection of socially radical verse by Carl Sandburg has just been published as Carl Sandburg: Poems for the People. The book consists of 73 poems written from 1912 to 1922 during Sandburg's early years as a Chicago journalist. Poem topics range from America's role in World War I to sharp criticism of Chicago's bleak socioeconomic conditions. Of author Henry James, Sandburg writes, "he was a poor fish/ and didn't know the way to the post office," whose work "doesn't stink/ it exudes an odor/ it delivers an effluvia/ if you know what I mean." Sandburg attacks literary critics, writing: "Yes, a book of verse should have answers in the back of the/ book, the same as an arithmetic./ Mystery we leave to the fortune-tellers; we mustn't put mystery in poetry."

The volume also contains a series of brief imagist poems that break with the confrontational tone of the social critique. In "October," Sandburg writes, "The rain drums play a dead march daylong/ And nightlong the wind cries in a treetop."

Sandburg scholars George and Willene Hendrick found, edited and annotated Poems for the People. The Hendricks helped organize the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign's purchase of Sandburg's papers in the 1960s while the poet was in North Carolina writing his autobiography. George Hendrick hypothesizes that Sandburg did not publish some of the Poems/or the People while he was alive because they might have rubbed people the wrong way.

NIU president to retire
Northern Illinois University President John E. La Tourette announced plans to retire early next year, saying he wanted to spend more time with his family and "move on to a new set of interests and challenges." He has served as NIU president for almost 15 years. During that time, NIU established an engineering college, expanded its law school, started four off-campus locations and received approval for a convocation center to be built in the next two years. The board of trustees will hire a consultant to help find a replacement for La Tourette.

JUDICIAL APPOINTMENTS
In late May, the state Supreme Court named Sangamon County State's Attorney Patrick Kelley and Associate Judge Dennis Schwartz of Carlinville judges in the circuit court. They replace Jeanne Scott, now a U.S. district judge, and Sue Myerscough, the 4th District appellate justice

39 July/August 1999 Illinois Issues