I’m a huge admirer of the SIUC newspaper, The Daily Egyptian. It’s not only well-written, it’s gutsy and ethical and knows exactly what SIUC has become.

… Board of Trustees Chairman Roger Tedrick has indirectly benefited from millions of dollars worth of construction contracts SIU has awarded — contracts that he voted to approve. Tedrick helped nearly 40 companies on university contracts find insurance to cover the work they would be doing. Tedrick voted “yes” on 20 of them — each of which weighed in at more than $250,000 — then found insurance for the successful bidder.

Between 2002 and 2006, Tedrick donated $26,000 to the Blagojevich campaign. Tedrick was appointed to the BOT in February of 2004.

… The Southern Illinoisan reported Sunday that SIU President Glenn Poshard’s son Dennis Poshard and Dennis’s company have received contracts from the university and from organizations affiliated with the university for $138,000.

Dennis Poshard’s company received a contract from his friend and neighbor, College of Business Dean Dennis Cradit, to make a promotional video for the college.

… President Poshard serves southern Illinois as a politician who understands the downstate area, but he shouldn’t be running the university like a patronage political machine.

… Now that SIU has Chicago’s attention, the Daily Egyptian appeals to Gov. Pat Quinn to stir up the university’s governing board. SIU is still rife with Blagojevich politics. There’s no telling how deep corruption could run at this university….

That last point’s the most important one. We know who the hacks are and how they think. The corruption almost certainly runs deeper than we know.

There’s a bright side to this. The Egyptian is well-positioned to win some serious journalism prizes. Unlike student journalists at clean schools, they’ve got a lot of dirt to write about.

Half the people asked at Southern Illinois University’s Edwardsville campus think it would be a good idea if it split way from the flagship Carbondale campus, according to a year-long study by the SIUE Faculty Senate.

A task force formed to examine the issue of campus separation, a proposal that has previously been the subject of state legislation by Metro East lawmakers, surveyed 1,838 faculty, students and staff at SIUE, including an interview with Edwardsville Chancellor Vaughn Vandegrift.

English professor Joel Hardman, chairman of the task force, said faculty on campus generally supported separating from Carbondale but the overall number showed thoughts were evenly split.

Vandegrift has been openly opposed to separation, as have SIU President Glenn Poshard and other top administrators of the university system.

The SIUE Faculty Senate has been critical of Poshard since allegation of plagiarism arose in 2007 about his doctoral dissertation. When the board cleared Poshard of the charges, the faculty senate called for his resignation.

The survey report also suggested other actions that could be taken instead of separation, such as changing wording on the SIU system Web site to better reflect each university’s individuality and moving the university’s system office from Carbondale to Springfield to enhance lobbying efforts and quell a perception of favoritism of SIUC.

Glenn Poshard is one of the few authentic political hacks running an American university system.

UD sympathizes with SIUE’s faculty. How would you like to live every day of your life embarrassed?

Maybe a name change is part of the solution. Southern Illinois Edwardsville In No Way Associated With Glenn Poshard.

But you also know that they’re all pretty much alike. They feature Harvard law professors and overseers (Ogletree, Tribe, Dershowitz, Goodwin) using slave labor to write their books for them (a technique fraught with dangers, of which plagiarism is only one); or they’re about desperate illiterates (Glenn Poshard, president of Southern Illinois University) drawing upon their betters…

Very straightforward, these plagiarism tales. But here’s one that’s really twisted.

A loving, demented son decides to defend his father’s controversial research by assuming the identity of one of his father’s critics and making the critic out to be a plagiarist.

[Raphael] Golb is accused of using stolen identities of various people, including a New York University professor who disagreed with his father, to elevate his father’s theory and besmirch its critics, Robert M. Morgenthau, the Manhattan district attorney, said at a news conference.

Mr. Golb, 49, was arrested Thursday morning and charged in Manhattan Criminal Court with identity theft, criminal impersonation and aggravated harassment. He faces up to four years in prison if convicted.

Prosecutors said Mr. Golb opened an e-mail account in the name of Lawrence H. Schiffman, the New York University professor who disagreed with Mr. Golb’s father. He sent messages in Professor Schiffman’s name to various people at N.Y.U. and to others involved in the Dead Sea Scrolls debate, fabricating an admission by Professor Schiffman that he had plagiarized some of Professor Golb’s work, Mr. Morgenthau said. Raphael Golb also set up blogs under various names that accused Dr. Schiffman of plagiarism, Mr. Morgenthau said.

Raphael Golb, who lives in Manhattan and received his law degree from N.Y.U., also created e-mail addresses using the names of other Dead Sea Scrolls scholars, Mr. Morgenthau said.

“This exemplifies a growing trend in the area of identity theft,” Antonia Merzon, an assistant district attorney, said during the news conference. “It’s very easy to open an account using any name you want on the Internet. There’s nothing necessarily wrong with that. But when you start using another person’s true identity for some purpose, you’re crossing the line into a possible identity theft crime or impersonation crime.”

The district attorney’s office began investigating the case after Professor Schiffman, who is chairman of the Hebrew and Judaic studies department at N.Y.U., came to them saying he believed that Mr. Golb was impersonating him on the Internet.

Golb’s father, an 81 year old University of Chicago professor who seems to share the paranoid tendencies of his son, thinks these charges are all part of the larger conspiracy against his work.

When you turn your university into a dumping ground for political hacks, not to mention a source of money for your kid, you can expect things to get ugly eventually.

Especially when your BFF, Rod Blagojevich, can no longer watch your back.

Southern Illinois University President Glenn Poshard said Thursday anyone with evidence of “pay-to-play politics” involved in appointments to the school’s Board of Trustees should contact the proper authorities.

Questions have arisen in public surrounding financial contributions to legally embattled former Gov. Rod Blagojevich by board members including Chairman Roger Tedrick, a Mount Vernon insurance agent; John Simmons, an attorney from Alton; and F. William Bonan II, regional president of Peoples National Bank in Mount Vernon.

… [One speaker] raised the claim of a $4 million state contribution for the construction of Rent One Park in Marion, the home stadium of the Southern Illinois Miners, a professional baseball team owned by Simmons.

Poshard, who worked with Simmons and his son, Dennis Poshard, to bring the team to the region, said the money was given to the city of Marion for infrastructure developments, not specifically the ball club.

Dennis Poshard was involved in other of Wright’s allegations, including that the Arthur Agency, of which Dennis Poshard is president, received contracts for work from the university.

Poshard acknowledged the work his son’s company has done for the university, but said it was all handled properly. For companies affiliated with university administrators and board members, policies and procedures for bidding are stricter than for general bid awards, Poshard said.

Documents from the March 2007 board meeting show a $100,000 payment to the Arthur Agency for marketing services for CONNECT SI….

Background on Poshard, who plagiarized his dissertation, here.

From The Southern:

Former Gov. Rod Blagojevich has been ousted from office, but concerns regarding his appointments to the Southern Illinois University Board of Trustees remain prevalent.

Gov. Pat Quinn, who replaced Blagojevich after the state Senate removed him from office, said Friday his administration would take a serious look at all appointments to state boards made by his predecessor.

“We are going to look at everything,” Quinn said. “We are taking it one day at a time and one issue at a time, but we’re definitely going to take a look at that.”

Members of the Southern Illinois community continue to ask questions about board members and the campaign contributions they made to the legally embattled Blagojevich, as demonstrated by a letter from Laraine Wright of Carbondale on today’s Opinion page.

“These people are chosen to do the best they can do for the public university,” said Wright, who’s attempting to rally residents to Thursday’s board meeting. “That’s a lot of money, a lot of responsibility, and they need to take it seriously.”

An Associated Press article in January linked Frank William Bonan II, the board’s newest and youngest member, to $30,000 in campaign contributions his father and uncle netted for Blagojevich at a fundraiser in November, less than a month after his appointment to the board.

Bonan declined to comment when approached by a reporter for The Southern on Wednesday.

Other board members – including Chairman Roger Tedrick and trustee John Simmons – donated a total of at least $25,000.

None of the contributors are accused of wrongdoing.

An internal review conducted by the university’s general counsel determined all the board appointments were clean and not connected to contributions. SIU President Glenn Poshard said Thursday he understood where concerns would come from but said the university completed its duty in the investigation.

“I recognize the environment we’re in where everybody’s under suspicion if they gave anything,” Poshard said. “We did the due diligence that we could do in talking to our board members and asking the questions.”

Poshard said he and the board members have no say in new appointments and that responsibility rests in the hands of the governor. All the members of the board have professional qualities and excel in their respective industries, which could be a basis for appointment, he added…

Poshard. If due diligence existed at his university, his plagiarism would have disqualified him from SIU’s presidency.

Best friends from way back with Blago, Poshard is just the man to oversee this dumping ground for political hacks.