URBANA -- University of Illinois trustees elected Chicago businessman Christopher Kennedy to be there new chairman on Tuesday, as they set about trying to clean up an admissions mess that tainted the school's image.

Kennedy, the son of former U.S. Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, said the board would move deliberately as it tries to move past a "sorry chapter" in the school's history. The board has been tasked with deciding whether university President B. Joseph White and Urbana-Champaign campus Chancellor Richard Herman should lose their jobs because of the scandal.

"We will be fully informed before we make any decisions. Every conversation leads to another, and until that ends we'll have more conversations," Kennedy said after the meeting. He didn't indicate when the board might decide on White and Herman, but trustee Ed McMillan said the board could decide at its next meeting in November.

Gov. Pat Quinn told reporters he would be part of the evaluation of White and Herman to the extent his schedule allows.

The trustees signed off on several reform measures on Tuesday outlined last month by White. They included abolishing a list used to pay close attention to applicants with political connections; building a so-called firewall around the admissions process to keep high-level university officials, lawmakers and others away; setting up a procedure for handling inquiries from lawmakers or anyone else inquiring about student applications; and creating an admissions code of conduct.

Trustees also were briefed on the university's financial situation, including the possibility that the university will have to cover $32 million in state scholarships for poor students this spring and another $10 million in veterans scholarships from its own $4.7 billion budget. The state provided money for neither in the budget passed this summer.

Who's now on the board?

Among those seated on the board Thursday were former Springfield Mayor Karen Hasara; Dr. Timothy Koritz of the Rockford suburb Roscoe; retired Exelon executive Pamela Strobel of Winnetka; and Carlos Tortolero of the Chicago suburb of Berwyn, who is president of the National Museum of Mexican Art. Southern Illinois businessman Edward McMillan, who resigned over the summer but was reappointed, also rejoined the board.

Seven of the board's nine members stepped down after news reports in May revealed that the Urbana-Champaign campus closely followed applications from politically connected students through a list known as Category I, and that some of those students were admitted to the school despite relatively poor academic records.

Two trustees, Lawrence Eppley and board Chairman Niranjan Shah, resigned within weeks of the first news reports. They were, according to those reports and the conclusions of Quinn's Illinois Admissions Review Commission, the trustees most heavily involved in influencing the admissions process.

Five other trustees - McMillan, Devon Bruce, David Dorris, Kenneth Schmidt Bob Vickrey - stepped down but said they'd like to be reappointed. Only McMillan was brought back.

Two other trustees, Frances Carroll and James Montgomery, declined to resign, and indicated they would fight Quinn in court if he removed them. Quinn, after first insisting they go, relented.

On Thursday, Carroll thanked Quinn during the meeting for changing his mind.

"I know you have taken much criticism for that decision and I admire your courage," she told the governor as he listened by phone on a flight bringing him to the meeting.