Michael J. Hogan

Michael J. Hogan is an American historian who served as president of the University of Connecticut (2007–2010) and president of the University of Illinois System (2010–2012). He subsequently became a distinguished professor of history at the University of Illinois at Springfield. Born and raised in Waterloo, Iowa, Hogan earned his B.A. degree at the University of Northern Iowa, where he majored in English with minors in history and classics. He received M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Iowa.

Hogan’s first university faculty positions were at Stony Brook University and at the University of Texas, Austin. He then taught at Miami University for nine years before accepting what would turn out to be his last full-time teaching position at Ohio State University in 1986. In 1993, Hogan was elevated to chair the Department of History at Ohio State, which he held until he moved into the administrative side of academia.

In 1999, Hogan was made dean of the College of Humanities at Ohio State. In 2001, he was given an additional position as executive dean of the Colleges of Arts and Sciences. During his tenure in that position, the position of executive dean evolved into a separate free-standing office with oversight of five colleges and forty-one departments. In 2003, Hogan accepted a position as Executive Vice President and Provost of the University of Iowa. While in Iowa City, he also held the position of F. Wendell Miller Professor of History.

On September 14, 2007, Hogan became the 14th president of the University of Connecticut, succeeding Philip E. Austin. As president, Hogan helped develop a $362 million plan to renovate and expand the University of Connecticut Health Center. Research spending grew by 25%, and academics and enrollment continued to pursue the upward trajectory established under President Austin.

Notwithstanding these successes, Hogan's tenure was brief and controversial. He refused to move into the official president's house in Storrs because his wife, Virginia, allegedly had a severe allergic reaction to mold and mildew there. So UConn paid $49,000 to rent and renovate a five-bedroom house near campus. 

He ordered a $475,000 renovation of the university’s main administrative building, where he worked, and he hosted a costly inauguration ceremony for himself, complete with fireworks. Hogan even spent $3,500 of the university's money to have a number of life-size cardboard cutouts of himself placed around campus. Faculty and state legislators complained that he behaved autocratically.

On May 11, 2010, Hogan was selected to succeed B. Joseph White as president of the University of Illinois System. He resigned from his position as President of the University of Connecticut, effective June 30. Governor Jodi Rell was among many UConn supporters who complained about the abruptness of Hogan's departure less than three years after taking the job. Hogan's was the briefest tenure of any UConn president since 1930.