When the Wolverines easily defeated the Illini at the beginning of the season, Larry Faulkner, provost at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, watched the game at Michigan Stadium.
Today, Faulkner returns for tougher action - this time from the Board of Regents and the general University community.
As the fourth and final candidate for the University presidency, Faulkner will participate in interviews today, concluding the week-long interview process.
Faulkner has served as provost and vice chancellor for academic affairs at the Big Ten institution since 1994. As chemistry professor and later dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, he is the only candidate with a science background.
"He's experienced life at all the ranks, all the way up," said Thomas Conry, chair of the faculty's governing body.
Faulkner said last week that he looks forward to meeting with the board and other members of the University community to sense "whether the chemistry between me and those individuals is going to be right."
He had hoped for meetings with individual regents but a recent judgment against the University bars this type of private interaction.
All meetings today will be public, including an interview with the board at 9 a.m. and a town-hall meeting in the afternoon.
Illinois Chancellor Michael Aiken said he is not surprised to hear that Faulkner is under consideration for the University's top post.
"People are not surprised he would be identified as someone who would be sought after as the president of an outstanding university," Aiken said. "At the same time, there would be regrets."
Aiken described Faulkner as a "visionary" who has been working hard to develop a "framework for the future" of the University of Illinois.
Faulkner said his position as provost forces him to concentrate more on daily activities, but as president, his focus would change.
"A president's immediate focus is not on day-to-day activities, but on what the university is becoming," Faulkner said.
In a speech he made as dean in 1992, Faulkner said, "The job of a major university is to help its students and its society to adapt to the world to come."
In the same speech, Faulkner noted the ongoing debate in finding a balance between teaching and conducting research at a large university. "It is now fashionable to criticize research in universities as being a distraction from the teaching mission and of little lasting value," he said. "To ask teachers at the university level not to do research is to ask them not to study."
As provost, Faulkner currently is working to restructure Illinois' budget. When discussions on budget reform began there a few years ago, Faulkner visited the University to research the process here, which is about a year ahead of Illinois's efforts.
Illinois chemistry Prof. Paul Bohn said Faulkner has developed task forces on many issues in order to include a variety of people in his decision-making process.
"He is a wonderful people person who is able to make students, faculty and staff feel like they have a stake in decisions," Bohn said. "People here have a lot of faith in his ability to make the right judgment call on tough decisions."
Conry said that Faulkner deals with a variety of policy decisions on "everything from sexual harassment to terms of employment."
"On a provost's plate, there's all kinds of issues you have to deal with," Conry said. "He's been doing a pretty effective job."
Bohn said he wishes there were an opening for the Illinois presidency.
"He is a person I have the highest respect for," Bohn said. "He would make a wonderful president here if we had the opening."
Conry agreed. "It's bad news for our institution," he said about the possibility of Faulkner leading the maize and blue. "It's good news for him if he gets it."
The three other finalists for the University presidency visited campus last week.
Provost and vice chancellor at the University of California at Berkeley Carol Christ was interviewed last Monday, University of Pennsylvania Provost Stanley Chodorow was here last Tuesday and Dartmouth College Provost Lee Bollinger was interviewed on Thursday.