SURS will hold a trustee election April 1 – May 3, to fill two expiring annuitant positions. There are also two expiring active-member seats on the board, but because only two active SURS members successfully completed petitions with the required 400 signatures, it will not be necessary to hold an election for those seats.
Active-Member Trustees
The following active-members will begin serving six-year trustee terms on July 15:
- Andriy Bodnaruk – professor and interim head of the department of finance at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
- Scott Weisbenner – William G. Karnes professor in Mergers and Acquisitions at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC).
Annuitant Trustee Election
There are two open annuitant seats. One is a six-year term, and the other is a three-year term created by the years left in an unexpired six-year term. Annuitant members will vote for one three-year annuitant term candidate and one six-year annuitant term candidate.
The following annuitant candidates submitted petitions with the required 100 signatures and will appear on the ballot:
Three-year term candidates
- Michael Fortner – associate professor emeritus of physics at Northern Illinois University.
- David Sinason – professor emeritus of accounting and auditing at Northern Illinois University.
- Mitchell Vogel – professor emeritus and former chair of Educational Leadership Northeastern Illinois University.
Six-year term candidates
- J. Fred Giertz – professor emeritus of economics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
- William A. Marzano – retired academic administrator from Waubonsee Community College and psychology instructor from Illinois Valley Community College.
Trustee candidates circulated petitions from Oct. 1, 2020 – Jan. 31, 2021. All petition signatures have been verified by SURS staff.
Eligible annuitant members will receive voting materials via email, if they have a valid email on file with SURS, or by U.S. mail if they do not. Materials will include biographical information on each candidate. Voting materials will come from the impartial election services company, YesElections.
To read the full biographies submitted by each candidate go to www.surs.org/surs-board-trustees-2021-election-candidates.