URBANA – New University of Illinois President Robert Easter shares one key challenge with two presidents before him: balancing the problem of dwindling state support with the need to hold tuition costs down.

But in his first day on the job, Easter listed a new priority, one created by the rocky previous three years that ended with Easter in the president’s office: to calm the storms that have become a regular part of university life since 2009.

The 64-year-old Easter was named president in March when Michael Hogan resigned under intense pressure from faculty. Hogan himself had been on the job less than two years, hired in 2010 to replace B. Joseph White after White resigned during an admissions scandal.